


Growing Up in the Jedi Temple

by MissIzzy



Series: Growing Up Universe [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Child Death, Children, Coruscant, Friendship, Gen, Goodbyes, Jedi, Lullabies, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-05
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-12 08:03:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/MissIzzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an AU where Anakin and Padmé are both taken to the Jedi Temple at a young age, the Sith threatened their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Jedi Temple, Coruscant, 40 BBY**

 

“Turn to the Dark Side, you had. Complete, your recovery cannot be.”

Shmi Skywalker knew she should look Master Yoda in the eye. But her baby began to cry, as if sensing his mother’s distress, though actually it was that he was hungry. So she didn't look up as she placed him at her breast, and said, “You are right, Master Yoda. I feel it in myself that I am no longer fit to be a Jedi. However, I leave my fate, and that of my son’s, in the hand’s of the Council.”

“Tell us your whole story over, from the beginning,” said Master Windu.

It was strange, how utterly detached she now was from what had once possessed her to the point that it had destroyed everything she had trained herself to be. “On the way back from Chommell Major, my Padawan and I received a distress call, which proved to be from a small planetoid, probably artificially constructed, located on a isolated spot on the Corellian Run.”

“Can you remember anything more, than earlier, about its exact location?” Even Piell interrupted her.

“No,” she replied, wondering why he even had to ask such a thing. “Only that it was probably somewhere in the Mid Rim. We noted when we approached the planetoid that much of the computer was jammed, but we didn't know the reason why until it was too late. The planetoid was the base of the Sith, Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, and the distress call had been fabricated by them to lure me there.”

Before this they had all believed the Sith to be long gone, but the Order did not have to take Shmi’s word for their return. They had suffered their own attack during her captivity. Shmi had seen the holo-recordings of those who had descended onto the temple and killed a number of Jedi before being repelled. She had for the Council’s benefit identified them as the minions of the Sith, and their leader as Sidious.

“Together the two of them were able to kill my apprentice and overpower me, and I was made their prisoner and kept so for at least eight months.” She had lost track of time; the records kept in the temple of her departure, her known traveling, and her return would calculate better estimates of when she had been where than those she herself could make. “During that time, I was often physically beaten and mentally assaulted.”

“But certain, you are,” Master Yaddle asked her, “that raped, you were not?”

“Some of my memories do not survive, but I think I would have remember if I was, or the Healers here would have found some physical evidence.”

“According to the Healers,” observed Oppo Rancisis, “your son’s midi-chlorian count is at an unheard-of level.”

Shmi nodded. “That would support the possibility of his being conceived directly by the midi-chlorians, at the bidding of Darth Plagueis, who openly boasted of his control over them. I was also aware that Darth Sidious continually urged his Master to kill me, and Plagueis refused.”

“Did he fear the prophecy?” Master Windu wondered aloud. “The one about the Chosen One who would destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force? That by creating life, they were risking its fulfillment?”

“Possibly,” said Shmi, “but then again, he may simply have believed that his Master was becoming too powerful. Or he might have just decided now was his time to kill his Master, as all Sith apprentices try to do sooner or later. All I know is that he chose, when I was nearly at term, to kill Darth Plagueis while the latter was asleep. Unfortunately for him, one of their minions saw him do it, and questioned whether under those circumstances they ought to follow him as their new leader. There was a rebellion and confusion. As an act of defiance, my guards freed me.”

Now came the hard part, even when she'd confessed it all already. “I repaid them by killing them. I had allowed hatred for all my captors to build up in me, and I released it into multiple acts of murder, by which I ended up helping Sidious by killing off many of the rebels, so that when he had subdued the rest, he offered to take me as his apprentice, under the condition that I perform an abortion on myself. I refused out of attachment to my baby.”

“Still,” observed Plo Koon, “you suggested it was compassion for your son, after his birth, that finally turned you back.”

“It was. That was the only good left in me, but I focused on it, made it stronger. I came back here for his sake rather than my own. Sith-made he may be, but he himself is an innocent. I would ask that you at least keep him safe, because Darth Sidious will come after him.” She in fact wanted them to train him as a Jedi, had marked the coming of that wish as her return from the Dark Side, and held it as her one remaining wish in life, but she dared not ask for it.

“More than keep him safe, we should,” said Yoda to his fellow council members. “Many Jedi, we have lost. Give up a baby, when train it, we can, we should not, without good reason.”

“There is no good reason,” said Master Rancisis. “A baby is incapable of evil.”

“Then he is to be a Jedi?” Shmi asked hopefully, before she could stop herself.

All around the chamber, there were nods. “Easy, that decision was,” Yoda observed. “Over his mother, take more time, we should. Wait outside, you will.”

Shmi bowed and left. As she did so, she heard Master Yoda give the order to contact Jocasta Nu.

After the wide windows of the council room, the hallway outside felt dark to Shmi, darker than she thought it could be here. Or perhaps she herself was darker, out of the company of those who were still creatures of the light. Anakin finished nursing; she covered her breast back up and held him close to her, but now she was afraid to look at him, lest she be unable to give him up, when in a few minute’s time they would part forever.

“My resolve has held this far," she whispered to herself. "Let it not break now.” She kept her gaze up, on a patch of sunlight traveling along the wall, creeping very slowly towards her. If it got too close, she knew she would move away. She couldn’t bear to feel it, not now. But instead of her, the pattern of light illuminated the woman approaching, whom Shmi could never fail to recognize.

She forced herself not to flee, not to move at all, not to even so much as tighten her grip on her baby. She suddenly remembered how she had once been told that she hadn’t been much older than Anakin was now when her parents had given her up. Was this something like how her own mother had felt?

“Hello, Master,” she said. “You’ve come to take Anakin to the creche, I believe.” She looked away from her old Master as she spoke, but despite nearly ten years and the most recent events, she could still sense the remnant of the once unbreakable bond between them.

“Is this how we greet each other now? Come, look at me, Shmi.” A gentle hand took her chin, turned her head, brought into her view a kind and loving face, the features of which were filled with shock and concern. "What happened to you? You look as if you’ve aged a full ten years since I saw you last.”

“Have you not heard plenty of what has happened to me, Master?” Shmi asked her. “I know word has gotten round. Even without rumor, can you not sense for yourself what I have become? Are you not ashamed of me? I wouldn’t even blame you for being angry. I’ve had an apprentice myself; I know every Master’s greatest fear is losing a Padawan to the Dark Side.”

“But I did not lose you in the end, now did I?” replied the other lightly. "Indeed, Shmi, to survive as you have, and come back as you have, and who says you will not be a proper Jedi again, given enough years...of what accomplishment can an old Master be prouder?”

“I must have caused you great pain at some point,” Shmi pointed out. “I know you aren’t made of stone.”

“Be that as it may.” Jocasta leaned forward and gently scooped her baby up from Shmi’s arms. “Anakin, did you say his name was?”

“Listen,” said Shmi. “I trust you absolutely. Will you keep an eye on him, whenever you can? I does me good to see you have him.”

“I’ll do everything I can for him,” Jocasta promised her. “I’ll even take him as my Padawan if he’s twelve and noone else has, though hopefully he won’t need me for that. Those days ought to be over for me, I admit.”

“Thank you,” said Shmi, and then “Thank you” again. She was aware that this conversation should end, and Jocasta and Anakin should leave, and then she might very well never see her old Master again either.

But Jocasta was now looking at the doors to the council chamber. “I think I know what they will do with you,” she said. “I wonder if I shall live long enough to see you again. But if not,” she squeezed Shmi’s hands, and very gently kissed her forehead. “May the Force be with you, my apprentice.”

After they were gone, Shmi stared off after them for a long time. When the sun found her, she did not move away from it.

The doors slid open and startled her, and Master Giett beckoned her back in. He took his seat, and this time Shmi faced Yoda without hesitation, calmer than she had been in a long time.

“To Dantooine, we are sending you," was his pronouncement. "There to mind the old temple. Recover there, you may.”

 

####  **Very Shortly After, Near the Creche**

 

“Jocasta.”

“Good afternoon.” Jocasta Nu was pleased to see Master Dooku, whose presence was never unwelcome to her. They had been friends since their Padawan days, and she did not approve of his philosophy, but she respected him, and more than that, she liked him. Too much, she sometimes feared.

“Going to the creche, I see. May I walk with you?”

“Certainly. Are you going anywhere?”

“I’m leaving late tonight for Firro. Is that young Skywalker’s baby?”

“Yes, it is. For all the fuss being made about his coming from the Sith, or possibly being the Chosen One, he’s just going to join all the others.” She let out the tiniest of laughs at that.

“I feel terribly sorry for his mother." Dooku spoke much more grimly. "They’ll probably expel her from the Order.”

“I don’t think they’ll go that far,” Jocasta replied, trying to make her voice still sound light, though in truth, just to see Shmi somewhat recovered was so great a relief she could not that day mourn fully for what was still lost. “I think they’ll merely send her away somewhere.”

“Suspend her, effectively. And would you approve of this?”

“It’s the best thing for her,” Jocasta said firmly. “I know her, Dooku. She was my apprentice, after all.”

“I admit you probably would have better judgement than I with regards to her. Though how much of her have you actually seen in recent years?”

“I have seen her and known her well enough, even after her knighting, to be sure the right thing would be for her to leave for some place quiet, where she can focus on purging her mind of the Dark Side. And I think she can do it. I really do.”

“She has started down the dark path,” Dooku pointed out. “Should it not forever dominate her destiny?”

She could sense the pleasure in his voice, and see it in his face when her answer was, “No, I don’t. At the very least, I should give my Padawan a chance. And what about you? Have you finally met Master Jinn’s new apprentice? What do you think of him? A good boy, is he not? Unlikely to go the way his last one did.”

“I did meet him, and I agree he is a good boy.” He spoke the last two words with a good amount of disdain. Jocasta could not help feel a little sadness for both her friend and young Kenobi, but she was not at all surprised. Thankfully she did not have to reply to this, as they had reached the creche.

The Jedi Temple had throughout most of its structure a general air of peace and quiet, but it was strongest by far in the creche. The lighting was low, just enough to illuminate the lines of little beds, many of them occupied by a sleeping infant, and the silhouette of a little child staring out the window, who turned when Jocasta and Dooku came in. Even her outline, however, had revealed that her clothes were that of a civilian.

She came into the light, looked up at them with frightened eyes. She couldn’t have been older than five. She didn’t even seem to see the baby. “Who are you, child?” asked Jocasta. “Are you an Initiate?”

“They said I was to be," said the girl. "My name is Padmé Naberrie.” Indeed, Jocasta saw that her hair was newly cut, and she remembered hearing about the recent finding of a girl of that name from Naboo who was a little old, but still an acceptable age to be taken into the Temple if she and her family would consent to it.

“And did they ask you to look over the creche for tonight?” asked Dooku.

“Oh yes, they did!” It was at this point that she saw the baby. “Do you want me to put him to bed?”

“Here, we can do it together.” Naberrie pulled aside the blankets on one of the unoccupied beds and Jocasta laid the boy down. He was fast asleep, but sighed happily when the little girl tucked him in. “And all is well?”

“Yes,” said Naberrie. “Very well. They’re all asleep.”

“Good. Goodnight, and may the Force be with you, Padmé Naberrie.”

Padmé felt better when the two old people had left. There had been a old person, older even than her grandmother, who was very old, who had come to her home and told her and her family that she could leave them and become a Jedi Knight if she wanted to, and she wished he hadn’t, because when her family had told her the choice was hers alone, she felt she should. It was a great honor to be a Jedi. It was the most noble thing she could do with her life, that was what everyone said. It had hurt more than anything to leave her family, to hug her mother for the last time, see the sadness in her sister Sola’s eyes. And her grandmother hadn’t even been there, but they couldn’t wait for her to return. Padmé had recorded a message goodbye for her.

But it hadn’t hurt as much as it had when it had truly sunk in that she would never see any of them again, or her home. When she had cried, the strange old man had dried her tears instead of her parents. He had told her that she had to let go of her family, until she no longer missed them.

She was never going to let go of her family, never. She was going to think of them every day, and she was going to miss them, even if she wasn’t supposed to.

She shouldn’t be here. They had landed on this strange planet five hours ago, this planet covered with painfully bright buildings, so different from Naboo, which was the most beautiful planet in the galaxy, and that had driven it home to her. The old man had said there were gardens in this temple, but that didn’t change that she shouldn’t be here.

Suddenly the baby the two old people had brought in woke up and started crying. She raced over to where the milk was kept, filled a bottle, and hurried back to where she’d put the baby and lifted him up into her arms. He pushed away the bottle, but his wailing was reduced into quiet sobs.

“Shhh, little baby, it’s all right, shhh, shhh, shhh,” she murmured. “If you want to be held, that’s okay, I’ll hold you.” He did want to be held, she thought. He was like her, because he too had just been taken away from his family, and no doubt he missed them as much as she did. These grown-up Jedi might not even think him capable of that, but Padmé knew better.

He curled himself up and cried into her tunic, and Padme sat down with him and began to sing a lullaby which she was sure would make him feel better. At home, she and Sola had always loved to hear it, especially during the loud thunderstorms:

 _“Never mind the dark, my dearest,_  
_Darkness will not touch mother’s child,_  
_In where you call home, you’ll always find light,_  
_And a pair of warm arms, to hold you at night_

 _Sleep my baby, la loo loo,_  
_Lee lee la, loo loo baby,_  
_Oh my lovely baby,_  
_Sleep my baby, sleep_

There were five verses, and usually Padmé and Sola were both asleep by the last of them, but she still sang as many of the words as she could remember, and when she was done, the boy was silent and his eyes were closed, but she wasn’t really sure if he was asleep or not. She carried him over to the window and sat down with him by the glass. The sun was very low in the sky, hidden behind the buildings in fact, and the result was not unlike that of the sun going behind the mountains. “Look, baby,” she whispered, soft enough so she wouldn’t wake him if he was asleep, “isn’t it beautiful? Have you seen anything like this, ever? Where do you come from, baby?”

She continued talking to him for some time, stopping only when she felt tired herself, and even then she kept him in her arms, because he obviously liked it there, and she found it very comforting to hold him.

She didn’t know when she feel asleep, but the old man who had taken her from Naboo to this place woke her up, and the first thing she knew was that her arms were at her sides. “Where’s the baby?” she asked.

“Back in his bed,” the old man answered. “You have been put in a clan. Come with me.”

It was many weeks later when Padmé, in the course of all her other tasks as a Jedi Initiate, would again finding herself one evening minding the infants in the creche, and she searched for the baby boy she had held and sung to. But to her disappointment, she was unable to tell which one of her many charges was him.


	2. Youngling and Oldling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A young initiate, an old one, and their first taste of being attacked.

**Jedi Temple, Coruscant, 34 BBY**

 

For months their exercises had grown fancier, and the Initiates had all heard from the older ones about what came next. When Master Yoda greeted them with one of the padawans, they knew it was the day. They lined themselves up for the class as usual, and took their helmets, though most of them hesitated to put them on..

“Today,” said Yoda, “need those helmets more than usual, you likely will. New things, we may try. This,” he gestured to the Padawan, “is Bultar Swan. Skilled, she is, in what I will teach you.”

Tiny glances made their way through the Initiates, which Yoda probably noticed, but ignored. “Review certain exercises first, we must. Bultar, spin please.”

The girl spread her arms out and lifted herself up, rotated once slowly, then again quickly, then landed. The Younglings might have rolled their eyes, but the grace and surety with which she did it and the subtle precision she contained in every inch of her body and movement awed them. It served as a reminder of how much they had still to learn.

“Go on,” Yoda waved his hand at them. “Spin, spin.”

Hastily the Younglings spread their hands out and lifted themselves up, but the flawlessness of Bultar Swan’s spin was nowhere in sight. It took more than one several seconds to even get up in the air, and many of them shook and fumbled with their hands, and landed with shock and disappointment on their faces, which did not go unnoticed by the amused Yoda. “Thought it would always be easy, did you, because you had supposedly mastered it? Practice it, you must, much more, very much more. Run through more basic exercises, we will.”

Spins, flips, and jumps came and went. They improved as they went on, some more than others. Finally, Yoda said, “Skywalker, Bird, S’lvar, Kon, Amersu. Here, with me. Bultar, continue to run the others through their basics.”

Five Initiates stepped out of the main group: two human boys, a human girl, a Klatooinian, and a Twi’lek. Yoda led them to the far side of the room, and directed them to put their helmets on.

“The First Kata is done when right, the time is. But done, it must be.” He must have seen the shuffling feet from both human boys, which stopped very quickly at his glare. “Heed me, you will! Wait, you now will. Bird.” Letha Bird, the human girl, tall and broad even at six years of age, moved forward at Yoda’s beckoning, until she stood a little over him. “Grown more, you have, I see. Grown with the Force, you have also?”

“I don’t know, Master.” Letha had not allowed her nervousness to show, as it usually did, when Yoda had called her out with the other four, nor when he had singled her out, but her voice was ridiculously strained, and her eyes even traveled to Swan and the other Initiates, as if making sure they weren’t paying attention to her too, because it was bad enough that Yoda and these four were.

Anakin Skywalker looked too, and noted they were not. It really did rankle, though he knew he probably deserved it, that Yoda was going to demonstrate the very first kata with her instead of him, when she had this problem with attention. With all the basic exercises it had been him first, following Yoda’s instructions perfectly while everyone watched him. It was always easier when he was listening to Yoda, but even without him they always came easier to Anakin than to the others.

But there was Letha, arms held out in the starting position, helmet fastened securely to her head-Anakin moved to fasten his.

“Imitate me, you will. Separately, the steps should first be done.” He put his cane aside, walked very slowly around her, and then clearly to within all of their sight.

Any negative feelings Anakin might have been suffering from were gone, blown out of him by how dazzled he always felt when Master Yoda did this. One second he was an old decrepit creature barely their size, the next he was throwing himself forward as if he was weightless, easily somersaulting with an activated lightsaber held out to one side, scrunched up until it turned into a roll, which landed him a surprisingly short distance from where he had started. He had both feet perfectly on the floor and looked at Letha expectantly.

Anakin really did hope she’d get it right; he knew it would terrible for her if she didn’t. But of course she messed it up. Not too badly, but she went too far when she rolled, and she looked like she was knocking herself over her own legs. It was a good thing she did it without the lightsaber.

“Smaller, you should not make yourself, when finishing it. Part of the form, that is not.” Letha, who had to noone’s surprise scrunched herself up in embarrassment, did her best to unscrunch. “So stiff, you cannot be,” Yoda insisted at her. “Try again, you must, but you cannot like that!”

It took several more minutes and a lot more coaxing before Letha was ready to go again, during which Anakin wished that if Yoda refused to have him or Octus Kon do this first , he would still replace Letha with one of the other two.

And then when she mastered the first move, there was still the second. She was still working on the third when Bultar Swan interrupted them by bringing over another one of the Initiates, little Enza Oxi. “I believe she may be ready to join the first five, Master.”

“Ready, is she? Basic spin.”

Of course Anakin knew he shouldn’t be impatient, and he’d been chastised for it already. But really, did Master Yoda have to test Enza in every single basic exercise? Surely if the Padawan said she was ready, that meant she was!

But it turned out not to be a problem that day, because Yoda finally turned to him and said, “Skywalker, demonstrate the first three forms, you will?”

“Yes, Master!” Letha stepped happily out of the way. He focused himself, knowing he had to get this right. Master Yoda was counting on him.

He thought he saw Yoda’s gimer stick coming at him and he leapt, forcing his mind to calm just before he went into the somersault, then kept it easily until he stood, tall as he could. He had completed all of the first three forms perfectly.

He wondered why Master Yoda didn’t seem pleased, and was just starting to worry that he was feeling too proud again when the doors opened, and to Anakin’s delight it was Padmé Naberrie. She was the girl who had tutored him for what little time he had needed tutoring back when he had been five, and his only real friend in the Jedi Temple.

“Initiate Naberrie. Pleased you will be, to hear your young clanmates are doing well.”

The six Initiates near Yoda and the others by Bultar Swan exchanged confused looks. They hadn’t thought any of them besides Anakin were doing well at all.

But Anakin also saw a bit of surprise on Padmé’s face. That couldn’t be to hear they were doing well; she always expected them to. No, he thought it more likely she was simply shocked Master Yoda knew her name. Which was silly of her, because Master Yoda knew _everyone_ ’s names.

But she quickly regained herself, and said, “I come from Master Piell; he needs to speak with you.”

“Wait, he will. Much more important things, I am doing.” He beckoned Anakin back in and pushed S’lvar forward. “First three-why still here, are you?” For Padmé was still standing there, looking like a baby hawk-bat caught in a transport’s headlights.

Yoda stared at her for several moments more, before she said, “But...Master Piell insisted I come back with you. I can’t go back alone.” Wow. That wasn't very nice of Master Piell at all. Was he treating Padmé like that because she was too old an Initiate?

“If go back alone, you cannot,” replied Yoda, “then go back with me you will-when I am done. Help me out, you will?”

“Oh, of course! What do you want me to do for you?”

“First Kata.” And so Padmé obediently launched herself into the kata, and Anakin didn’t know for sure but he thought she was doing it perfectly, and Master Yoda looked approvingly.

How long ago was it that Padmé would have paid special attention to how Master Yoda watched her, even if she knew it was unlikely that he would take her, simply because he was without a Padawan, and that meant there had to be a chance, however small, that he might decide to take her on as his? Only a few weeks ago, when there would have been a hint of desperation in her eyes, and in the flick of her arms and legs too? But now she barely looked at him, and she did the kata without giving it any real thought.

_Why has she given up?_ Anakin thought, for the hundredth time. _She’s not even twelve yet!_

And why did Master Yoda look at her with such compassion and not do anything? How many stupid Masters, even ones better than Master Piell, had looked at Padmé that way, wondering why she didn’t have a Master, without even considering, even for just a second or so, that they might become her Master?

Master Yoda sent her over to help out with the other Initiates, so Anakin didn’t see much of her for the rest of the lesson, but he watched her lead Yoda away afterwards, and barely heard his agemates talking about how cool the lesson had been, ignoring the questions asked of the lucky six who had actually gotten to try the kata. He was going to talk to her after lastmeal, during the only time of day when the Initiates weren’t directly supervised.

 

####  **That Evening**

 

Anakin wasn’t surprised when he and Padmé ended up eating alone. Not only was she his only friend, but most of her old friends were away with their Masters, scattered across the galaxy, leaving her the oldest unchosen Initiate in their clan, and her remaining agemates in the other clans had other eating hours.

They didn’t talk at first, so to eat quicker. Neither of them liked to spend longer in the refectory than they had to, where they were both stared at. Anakin used to being stared at, though it still hurt to hear them whisper about his mother, and dark origins. But it was only recently that people had begun seeing Padmé and wondering what she was doing there with only a much younger Initiate to keep her company.

They finished at the same time, something they were very good at doing. Wordlessly they returned their trays together, then walked out into the corridor, where they simultaneously sagged in relief at feeling everyone’s eyes off them. “One more year of this,” Anakin heard Padmé mutter as made their way towards his dormitory.

“Okay, Padmé,” said Anakin, in his most authoritative voice. “You need to remember a few things. First, you are still not twelve.”

“Less than a month.”

“Second,” he said, louder, “second, there are Initiates who are selected when they are twelve. There are even Masters who don’t like having younger Padawans, so they only select Initiates who are twelve.”

“They don’t select Initiates who came to the Temple too late and who don’t exactly have the highest midi-chlorian count ever.”

“You did not come to the Temple too late!” Anakin insisted at her. “If they thought that, they wouldn’t have taken you to the Temple in the first place. And your count is well above the limit, isn’t it?”

“So I’ve been reminded before, but even so, I think they would have done better to have left me on Naboo.”

Anakin shared his sleeping quarters with the other male agemates of his clan, who were all still in the refectory, which was the reason they went there instead of where she slept. Both of their happiest hours had been spent sitting together on his sleeping couch, working or just talking.

That was where they flopped down now, and Anakin said, “You know, I’m starting to wonder if you really want to be a Jedi.”

“What makes you say that?” she demanded, dismayed.

“Because you’re always wishing they left you behind with your family, I know you like the idea of seeing them again, and you’re still being way too pessimistic.”

Tears came from her at that. “It’s because I want to be a Jedi that I wish that! I wish they hadn’t taken me away because if they hadn’t, I would never have known I could be a Jedi, always thought it a destiny for someone other than me. But they took me here, they raised me to prepare to be a Jedi, and more than that, they raised me to want it, so badly it hurts. I would never have wanted to be a Jedi if I’d been a simple mountain farming girl. And now I’m just going to end up a farmer anyway, but be unable to be content with it!”

Anakin hastily started looking around for something she could wipe her eyes with. “I'm sorry, Padmé, don't cry. Please don't be angry."

“Why shouldn’t I be? It’s not like it matters now.”

“Don’t say that! Never say that!” He abandoned the quest and seized her wrists, tried to yank her over into looking at him. “If you stop trying, of course you won’t succeed.”

Whether he got through to her or not he didn’t know. She turned away, and dried her eyes with her hands. He just watched her, knowing she didn’t mind if he stared the way they both minded if other people did. He thought he heard her murmur, “Release,” before he saw he muscles relax and her anger leave her. “You are right that I wouldn’t mind going back to Naboo,” she said, more to herself than him. “At least, if I can’t stay here. Did you know when I turn thirteen, I’ll be considered of age by my people? I wonder if they would consider me of age, and the wouldn't insist I go to some distant Agricultural Corps world, but just let me leave and decide me own fate?”

“Then you could definitely go home, couldn’t you?”

“If it's home,” she sighed. “I don’t know if home is able to be anywhere other than here in the Temple now. Naboo...well, it’s the most beautiful place in the galaxy, and of course I’ll never forget my family, but I don’t miss them now, the way I once thought I always would.”

This, thought Anakin, was something he couldn’t understand. Because the Jedi Temple always had been home to him, from as far back as he could remember. And as for his family, he apparently had no father at all, unless one counted Darth Plagueis, and he sure didn’t, and his mother was no more than an image and a profile in the databank where he’d read about her history and current location.

Except there was one memory that might have been of her, but he wasn’t sure. It was of a place which he thought was the creche here in the Temple, and a pair of arms holding him, and a soft sweet voice talking to him, and singing a lullaby. It was his earliest memory, and he thought it might be from just before they sent her away. He couldn’t think of anyone else who would have done that to him.

Though as for what it was like to miss someone, if Padmé was right about her future, he would understand what that was like soon. He didn’t like to think about the idea that they would send her away, where she’d be miserable for the rest of her life, and he would never see her again.

“They might not select me either,” he said, voicing the fear for the first time. “They seem scared of me. They others say that Master Yoda said-”

“Never mind what they say Master Yoda said.” Padmé cut him off. “You don’t know that he really said it. And even if he did, you’re the Chosen One! You have to be trained!”

“I don’t know if I’m the Chosen One,” Anakin sighed. “Neither do they.”

“I’m sure that many of them are convinced you are, and enough that one of them will take you. Ani, it only takes one of them to say, ‘I’ll train you.’ Just one.”

“Padmé, that’s what I was trying to tell you!”

She opened her mouth to disagree, but the doors opened, and Octus ran in, yelling, “Anakin! Anakin! The Temple’s being attacked again!”

“What?” Padmé leapt to her feet, her hand going to the lightsaber strapped to her belt. “What are you talking about? I can’t sense anythi-” But then she paused, and looked as if she was sniffing the air. Anakin too could sense something was amiss.

“We saw the ships from the windows," said Octus, "and Master Jinn said they were the Sith ships, and we all have to hide in the towers, and they left Sara Tor’nuit to get us there, and she’s supposed to help, and one of the younger padawans might, or he might have to fight-”

“Come on then!” Seizing Anakin by one hand and Octus by the other, Padmé took off at a run, taking the two boys with her.

They were just outside the refectory and could hear Sara Tor’nuit’s voice yelling, “Everyone over here! Stop panicking!” when suddenly the corridor shook with a bone-sickening crash which made half the Younglings in the refectory scream, followed by the more distant sounds of battle.

The doors opened to a frightening scene. A piece of the wall had fallen into the middle of the crowd, and almost surely it had fallen on someone, but with the crowd they couldn’t tell who at first.

But by the time Padmé forced her way through the crowd, Anakin and Octus still trailing after her, Xiaan Amersu had also reached the fallen wall and the two bodies under it, and were yelling their names: “Initiate Tor’nuit? Letha? LETHA!” But they were dead. They could all feel that.

And the Padawan they just mentioned was nowhere in sight. He must have gone off to fight. Padmé was now the oldest left in the room.

“Silence,” she said sharply, but only loud enough to be heard over all the shouting, Anakin thought. The voices died down, everyone looked at her.

She was still holding Anakin’s hand, though not Octus’, and so Anakin could feel sweat on it, but she otherwise seemed fearless. “Everyone follow me.”

Down the corridors they went, other Initiates joining them, more every time Padmé opened a door and yelled into it, “Everyone come with me. We’re going to the spires.” And they all followed her, even after they were joined by Initiates her age, and older too. Many of them looked at Anakin walking alongside her, still holding her hand, and he wondered if, strange as it sounded, his being with her was a part of why she was accepted as their leader. She kept a tight hold on him, even though she had to know he wasn’t going anywhere.

With each distant explosion they walked faster. When the lights flickered and went out, they quickened their pace even more, and more when pieces of the ceiling started falling down, though the older ones lifted their hands and kept them from hitting; instead they fell harmlessly behind the group.

As they neared the end of the dormitories, the sounds of fighting grew louder. Then the doors opened, and Padmé’s lightsaber amoung several others were drawn and at the ready, but everyone relaxed when they saw who had come in: Master Yaddle, apparently injured, and clutching onto the shoulders of her young padawan.

“Destroyed, the central spire has been,” gasped out Yaddle. “Under attack and falling, the other four are. Escape the Temple, you all must.”

“How?” asked a horrified Padmé.

“Oné, turn around. Directions, I will give you all.”

Now they ran, through steep passages and up several staircases, some of the youngest panting with the effort, far beyond where the Initiates would ever have been allowed to go. All around them were explosions, the glows of which could sometimes be seen, and the sound of sabers and blasters, often very close, and pieces of the walls and ceilings continued to give way, but even injured Master Yaddle was very powerful, and they bounced off an invisible shield.

At last they burst into a wide hanger, filled with fighter ships. “Made, this was, after the last attack,” Yaddle explained. “Two of you, each can carry. How many of you can pilot?”

Padmé finally let go of Anakin and moved over. So did most of the older Initiates, comfortably more than half of the group.

“Take the ships. Each of you who can pilot, fly with the ones who can’t, you should.”

Anakin had barely given his hand and wrist a good rub when Padmé had grabbed them again. She led him to one of the fighters and pushed him into the co-pilot’s chair. He took a curious look at the controls, and noted with a tiny bit of pleasure that he understood what many of them did.

Padmé sat down next to him and placed a helmet on his head. She pressed a button and the hatch closed itself up above them.

Up the fighter lifted, and Padmé steered them in between the other ships, many of which were swinging about wildly, and several times she had to swerve violently aside. “Rudimentary in some ways,” she observed, “They concentrated on fitting a hyperdrive into a ship that would normally be too small. And what are the steering handles doing embedded on the dashboard?”

There was a radio, though, and it crackled to life with Master Yaddle’s voice, “What firepower there is, ready, you must have. Attack when you emerge, they will.”

“Anakin, can you tell me when that lights up?” She indicated a small red light near him and then pressed several buttons.

“We’re clearing the hanger.” Suddenly they were out of the Temple, and the cockpit was flooded with light, red and orange in the most brilliant hues Anakin had ever seen. In spite of everything he felt his breath catch in awe. He had seen sunsets from the windows of the Temple, of course, but they were nothing compared to being surrounded by one. He nearly missed the tiny red flash, dwarfed by the other lights, but he remembered and reported to Padmé that it was lit.

She was flying them in between the large buildings which had never before seemed real, but now were huge, fascinating things, but then blaster fire streaked across the hatch, blotting out the sunset and exploding the world in bright red.

“That was too close,” muttered Padmé. “I’m returning fire.”

More red flew out from the ship’s guns, and explosions thundered around them, some of the ships of their fellow Initiates, and for the first time, Anakin looked at the Temple as they charged it down, firing at the big dark grey ships nearest them. The central spire was lying across the structure; the others swayed dangerously. Before their eyes a second one took a blast from a dark grey ship and tumbled down, hitting the tower already down and breaking it in half. Next to him he heard Padmé make a choking noise.

Then a new voice, one of an older girl, over the radio. “Clear the planet as fast as you can, and then continue into hyperspace.”

“Who’s that?” Anakin wondered.

“It’s Oné! Oné, is Master Yaddle all right?”

“She’s weakening” was all they heard before there was a burst of static and the radio went out. Padmé had pulled them up and they were now flying high over Coruscant, the Jedi Temple falling behind, its two fallen spires looking like little snapped branches and getting harder and harder to spot.

Higher and higher, and blaster fire was still streaking past them. “There’s a small group of them following us,” said Padmé; her calm was kind of amazing. “Do you know how to operate the navicomputer?”

“No!”

“Then you’ll have to operate the navigational controls for a minute or so. See these handles?” She took his hands and put them on top of the steering handles, locatedly, indeed strangely enough, on the dashboard. “You move them this way to go this way,” the ship swerved back down towards the planet and then around in a loop, “this way to go this way,” the ship flew distinctly away from the planet and Anakin felt a sudden strange sensation, as if he weighed nothing for a split second, “and-”

“-and you move them that way to go that way, and so on?” Anakin interrupted her.

“Yes, you’ve got it,” said a very pleased Padmé. “And we’ve cleared the main gravity field. Get us as far away from everything in orbit as possible and try to hold those grey ships off until we can jump to lightspeed.”

It was harder to steer the ship than Anakin thought. It seemed every time he moved the handles the ship moved further than he wanted it to, he had no idea how the enemy ships could be held off, and to top it off, Padmé was leaning over him, pressing him down into the central panel, as she tried to run the navicomputer. Anxiously he flew the ship down from fire, then hastily back up again to avoid more fire, then higher still to avoid crashing into the large metal thing in front of them, then back down to avoid another bigger metal thing, and he was trying to figure out how many more metal things there were, but he had to concentrate on moving out of the way of where he knew that ship was going to fire and still they weren’t avoiding the fire all together, so while the shields were holding ship was rocking like mad.

“Keep going, Ani, we’re almost out!” Spurred on by her words, he slid between two more round metal things and out into open space.

“Prepare for light speed. Just a little more space.” She pushed Anakin aside, and moved the ship past more blaster fire, then with a “Hope I’m right...” she pulled the throttle back.

Anakin felt another strange sensation, the opposite of the earlier: now he felt like he was increasing in weight until he thought his chair should be crushed beneath him, while outside the cockpit the stars began to move so fast they turned into streaks of light, then merged with each other until there was nothing outside but an endless cloud of white-blue, and he felt like his normal weight again.

The control panel let out a series of beeps, and Padmé said, “Looks like there’s autopilot programmed to lock us onto a course that’s just engaged. This ship is officially out of my hands.” She breathed out hard, her head fell back across the top of her seat, and a single tear fell down her cheek.

“I’m sorry about Sara Tor’nuit,” Anakin offered. “You were friends with her, weren’t you?”

“It not just her. So many of those ships must have been blown apart, and so many others killed besides that. I hope Master Yaddle makes it. Poor Oné. To be chosen as early as she was, and to lose a Master at precisely her age...I’ve heard it’s terrible.”

“Are you friends with her too?”

“Not really, but I do know her a little bit. Her family was from Naboo, or at least her mother was; I think who her father was is a bit more complicated, but she was in the creche when she was a week old. She got curious about her homeworld once, and asked me about it.”

“What did you tell her?”

Padmé’s expression turned far away as she answered. “I told her about my home, and about the mountains, and the fog in the mornings, and how my mother always told me sister Sola and me to look out for the ghosts.”

It was then that Anakin realized something. “Padmé, do you know, you’ve led a bunch of Initiates to safety, including me, the Chosen One?”

“That wasn’t really me,” started Padmé, “that was Master Yaddle, with Oné’s help...”

“Still, you did a lot, didn’t you? You took command without panicking, you led us through most of the dorm rooms, and you got both yourself and me to safety. Unless we die before we get back, you’ll be a Padawan within the month!”


	3. From Snow to Sulfer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The initiates hide out on Ilum before Master Windu arrives to lead them to another place theoretically safer, but when their ship goes awry Anakin and Padmé both nearly die.

####  **The Jedi Temple on Ilum, Several Days Later**

 

“The crystal is the heart of the blade. The heart is the crystal of the Jedi. The Jedi is the crystal of the Force. The Force is the blade of the heart. All are intertwined: the crystal, the blade, the Jedi. We are one.” Padmé held out the lightsaber handle and activated the blade, smiling at its blue shade. “Odd how making the handle took more time then finding the crystal, but then, I did have to cobble it together from what metal we could spare.”

Padmé was hardly the only one to spend hours sifting through the thousands of crystals of the cave, searching for the right one for her. In fact, all the Initiates who had landed on this snow-covered world had done so. There were twenty of them, from a dozen ships. Oné had suggested there might be more survivors, as she believed the different fighters were programmed to go to different places. “So if the Sith find one group, another still remains safe.”

Master Yaddle might have been able to confirm it, but she was unconscious in what her apprentice hoped was a healing trance. Oné had been to the temple and cave before, and showed no interest in them now, instead refusing to leave her Master’s side. That she ought to put her personal griefs aside as their _de facto_ leader had not occurred to her.

Instead Padmé, as the oldest after Oné, had seen to their supplies and set rations, directed the continual scanning of the area around the planet to the best of their ability, and even made attempts during the first couple of days to keep them to their exercises, though she’d finally given up on that. Remembering her irked words to the group and her private complaints to him, Anakin observed to her now, “You have to start practicing your katas even harder, now that you have that.”

“So will you,” she rejoined, “once you find your own.”

“You think they’ll let me make a lightsaber when I’m only six?” Also he wasn’t sure how, even after watching Padmé make hers.

“Well, you can find your crystal anyway. I’m sure they’ll let you keep it for as long as need be. Keep searching.”

“Sure you won’t tell me what I’m looking for?”

“You’ll know it when you find it, I promise you that, Ani.” Blade still lit, she lowered her arm, then cleverly leapt over it, launching into a kata far beyond Anakin’s capability. It ended with a graceful vault which took her legs straight over her body and landed her neatly with her feet straight forward and her lightsaber held out to her side. Anakin clapped.

“I’m too restless,” she said, then deactivated her new lightsaber, attached it to her belt where the old one had once been, and walked away towards where five Younglings were shifting through the crystals in an alarming manner, leaving a whole pile of them discarded on what was supposed to be a path kept clear. She had scolded Anakin for the same carelessness, which was why he now left each and every crystal where he found it.

For the next hour, this was exactly what he did, moving down the cave wall, and one of Padmé’s comments running through his head, “I think it was Master Gallia who said the process of making one’s lightsaber is as much a test of patience as of skill.” Then he spent another hour, by the end of which he was wondering how she found hers so quickly.

“Excuse me, Skywalker?”

It was a relief when Oné interrupted him, and even that she looked more frustrated than he felt, which wasn’t easy. Though it did increase his previously small worry that just because she was a Master and a Council Member didn’t mean Master Yaddle might not die. “Where’s Padmé Naberrie? Do you have any idea?”

“I...” Anakin looked back in the direction he had come, but could neither see or hear anything. “I think she went over that way,” he said, pointing, “but that was a couple of hours ago. Why? Is Master Yaddle okay?”

“She’s exactly as she’s been since we landed here. Thank you, though.” She strode off to where Anakin had pointed, then suddenly stopped, turned back, and said, “Try quieting your mind more. It makes finding it a lot easier.” Then she was gone.

Quiet his mind. He supposed Padmé knew how to do that. But he didn’t. “Think calm,” he said out loud. Calm, like Padmé’s face had been when he had watched her search the crystals. He thought of those peaceful hours together on his sleeping couch, trying to recall the feeling he got. Calm. Quiet.

His attention turned back to the crystals. They were very bright. “Calm.” He repeated it over and over as a mantra, as he went through crystal after crystal after crystal...

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he thought something caught his eye. It was gone the next moment, before he had any idea what it was, and he wished he wasn’t becoming so excited. “Calm. No, I have to be calm.” But unable to figure out even where he had seen it, he resumed his search.

Within the next hour, at least he thought it was another hour, but it could have been a completely different length of time, several more “somethings” drew Anakin’s eyes to them, only to vanish when he looked closely. It was getting harder and harder to stay calm, and he was just starting to wonder if all this teasing just made him feel worse when suddenly, he saw it.

He knew what he had seen immediately this time. It was a green crystal, inlaid near the end of the cluster, and it seemed to his eyes to outshine everything else in the cave. His fingers touched it; he felt them thrum with its energy. With very great care, he closed his fingers around the crystal. It warmed his hands, which they all had done, but it felt like this one warmed them more. He did not pull roughly, but patiently, shifting the crystal back and forth to loosen it, determined not the break any of it off. It seemed to take forever, but then he held the whole crystal in front of his eyes, and thought it amazing it didn’t blind him.

As he continued to hold up the crystal, excitement bubbled up through him, and he was off at a run, slipping and sprawling and pulling himself up after making sure the precious crystal was unharmed. “Padmé!” he yelled. “Padmé! I’ve found it! I’ve found my crystal!” He really had gone very deep into the caves. He passed a Shistavanen a bit older than him, and two more Younglings his own age, but couldn’t find Padmé for some time, before he began looking for the way to the front of the cave.

He finally found her in the artificially constructed anteroom. With her were Oné, holding Master Yaddle as one might cradle a baby, Octus and Xiaan, and two other Initiates Anakin didn’t know. All six were staring over their communications devices intently, and Anakin quickly realized something was going on.

None of them saw him until he went up to Padmé and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, startled, then exclaimed, “Oh! Ani! Someone’s coming!”

“What?” And now he saw the monitor they had out, and it showed a ship approaching.

“It’s almost in communications range,” Padmé explained. “Just twenty seconds more.”

Mentally they counted down the seconds, then Oné murmured, “Here goes,” and turned the radio on. “Jedi Fighter, do you copy? This is Padawan Oné Madierre; I have an injured Master and 18 Initiates with me. We are awaiting instructions.”

There came an answering voice, “Padawan Madierre, this is Master Windu. Can you name who’s with you?”

Oné actually had trouble remembering all the names, but Padmé prompted her, and she looked much happier when they heard Master Windu reply, “Stay there. I’ll come to you and take a look at Master Yaddle.”

“Anakin, Ashlk, can you find the others and bring them here? When you find Voolvif Monn, advise him that he’ll need to go outside and keep a visual lookout.

It took Anakin and Ashlk so long to find everyone that when they returned with the last of the Initiates, tiny Barriss Offee, struggling to keep up with their frantic pace, they found the anteroom deserted, except for Oné, with Master Yaddle, who directed them outside.

Dressed in the snowsuits thoughtfully kept in the anteroom, they trod outside into the snow, to find the other fifteen Initiates were staring up into the sky, where a distant dark ship was attempting to navigate the snowstorm. Padmé looked anxiously at them, and her first question was, “Is Oné still in there? She should be here to greet Master Windu.”

“I don’t think she’s going to take Master Yaddle out here,” said one of the older human boys. “And she’s definitely not going to leave her alone. Insisted I stay with her when she went to you. I don’t know why; it’s not like any of us can do anything.”

Anakin made it to Padmé’s side by the time the fighter had cleared the worse of it and was engaged in the landing cycle, its lone occupant visible. “Doesn’t he have an apprentice?” Someone suddenly asked. “Something Shen-Jon?”

“A lot of people have died,” said Padmé. She didn’t have to say any more. But when Master Windu emerged, though she looked mostly awed, Anakin could sense a bit of the kindness and sympathy that was the best thing about Padmé.

She bowed to him, and spoke, “Greetings, Master. Master Yaddle needs your help.”

“Take me to her.” Padmé led both him and the group inside. As she did, Anakin saw Master Windu glance over everyone, gaze maybe lingering over Anakin himself a little longer.

Inside, Oné looked up, then jumped to her feet and held Yaddle out. “She’s been like this since before we landed. Please, Master, can you help?”

Master Windu took her, examined her as she hung limp in his hands. “I will do what I can, but I think she will need Master Yoda.”

Oné wasn’t going to ask, so Padmé did. “Master, are we to go back to Coruscant now?”

“I believe so. The battle has ended.”

“There are two more ships coming.” It was Barriss who said this, staring wide-eyed at the monitor.

At her words, everyone crowded around the monitor, and stared at the two fighters that had appeared on the screen. When they were in range, Master Windu hailed them, and got a response: “Mace, this is Qui-Gon. Have you got anyone with you there?”

“Master Yaddle with her padawan, and eighteen Initiates. MasterYaddle’s in a healing trance; she needs Master Yoda’s aid as soon as she can get it.”

“I’m afraid that may be a while. The battle’s not over yet after all, and we have reason to fear your fighter’s been tracked.”

Everyone else looked alarmed, but Master Windu’s expression did not change. “If I have been tracked here, then we all need to get off the planet as quickly as possible. Are all the ships still hyperspace capable?” He clearly asked this of Oné. She nodded. “Yet there would still be the issue of piloting...I may need to reprogram some of the autopilots.”

 

####  **An Hour or So Later**

 

Anakin found himself once again in the co-pilot’s seat next to Padmé, but though there was again a feeling of urgency in the air, it was a calm urgency. They knew what they were doing, and more importantly for Padmé, she was no longer in charge. Though Anakin thought she did just fine when she was, she was clearly relieved not to be anymore.

They had repaired the radio enough for it to work at the moment, and Padmé notified Master Windu that they were ready, while through a constant static buzz they heard ten more responses, and then the order to take off. Up they lifted, much more slowly and deliberately than the last time, the ships around them moving at the same speed and in the same direction, like a set of droids. Up further, and Ilum’s cloud cover obscured their companions for nearly half a minute, then again the brief sensation of weightlessness as they cleared the gravity field. As one, twelve ships turned and floated out into deep space, towards two ships that waited for them, suspended in the nothingness of space.

The radio crackled to life again, and they heard Master Jinn’s voice say, “You aren’t being tracked now, but we can’t risk going too far.”

“I am aware of that,” answered Master Windu’s voice. “The autopilots are programmed to travel to the Aseldine system. Prepare for lightspeed.”

Wordlessly Anakin moved to take over the navigation, though this time he only had to hold the ship steady, while Padmé operated the fancier controls, then settled back with her hand on the throttle. “Number three standing by,” she reported over the radio. Similar responses sounded over the static.

“On my mark,” they heard Master Windu say, “three...two...one...mark.” Padmé pulled the throttle, and again the stars dissolved into each other and Anakin felt the sensation of growing weight as they jumped to lightspeed.

It wasn’t too long a journey to the Aseldine system, and soon enough they were dropping out of hyperspace and facing down a large yellowish planet. “Polsing. Technically habitable by most species, but we’ll get ill if we stay there too long. The air is barely breathable by humans.”

“They know what they’re doing,” Anakin reassured her. “They have to, they’re Masters.”

The tiny fleet descended into the atmosphere together, but as they did, Anakin and Padmé’s ship was suddenly knocked over by winds stronger than Anakin had dreamed existed. Padmé struggled with the steering handles before she handed them over to Anakin, who didn’t know how she could possibly keep a hold on them with the ship rocking so violently, with a, “Just try to keep up going down and horizontal, I’m going to see what I can do. If I think we can I’ll try to land.”

Anakin screamed once during the descent, when he did lose hold of the controls and was hurled against the back of the cockpit. But Padmé was back to that unbreakable calm of hers, taking a hold of him and all but shoving him back to the dashboard, and murmuring, “Don’t panic, Ani, just hold on. We’re getting lower.”

“And that’s good?” It seemed to Anakin the lower the ship got, the worse the wind got. For the first time he wondered if his friend might be going crazy.

But after a pause, she said, “You’re right, it’s not. But I don’t know what else we can...” Several moments silence where he was occupied with trying not to get thrown across the cockpit again. “I know what we’re going to do. It’s risky, and we’ll lose the ship, but unless I can get something else to work within half a minute we’ll have no choice.”

 _But if we lose the ship..._ But Anakin said nothing, hoping Padmé would be able to do something else. The seconds flew by, and then finally Padmé said, “We have to eject. Anakin, put your arms around me and hold tight.”

He clutched to Padmé with all the strength he had as she pressed a button to open the hatch. Then she jumped.

Anakin was aware only of the rough stink of the air around them, the too swift rush of the air, the power Padmé’s body generated as she performed the aerial, and the sound of the fighter pilot crashing below them. Then they hit the ground hard, jagged rocks cutting into them, and they both yelled in pain.

Then he was being lifted up and turned around, examined, Padmé touching him in places that sure did hurt, but then said, “Nothing serious. Sorry. I need more practice on that one.”

She examined herself, said, "And I'm good,” then stood around and looked up. He thought of asking her what they would do now, but then he realized she didn’t know.

After a minute or so, she turned and trudged back to the wreckage of their ship. As Anakin watched, she floated out all she could above the flames, including her old lightsaber, which she tossed to him. “You just might need it. You’ve got your crystal in your belt pouch, right?” He felt around for it, then nodded. “Good. Most of this is cold-weather gear. Not much use in this place. We’re going to need to find shelter too, or the heat could very well kill us. Still, we’ve got a some rations and a good medical kit. And I think we could get this communicator to work if we struggled with it enough.” She placed a few items in a pack and threw it over her back. “Lets go uphill a little. See if we can spot some of the others, or a cave.”

Already sore and tired, Anakin soon found the hike uphill pure torture. The air was so bad it felt like he was breathing in thick dust, and it burned worse and worse, until he felt he couldn’t stand to breath it anymore. Soon his legs hurt so much he could barely move them. The rest of him hurt too. His chest hurt so bad he wanted to hit it until it broke. He didn’t think Padmé was feeling much better. When she gasped out, “Okay, that’s high enough,” he fell to the ground, not even caring that it was covered with sharp rocks that dug into his body, and could barely look up enough to watch her determinedly gaze around, though she was stumbling about, having trouble with standing.

“Can’t see a thing in this gale,” she muttered, and bent her head downward. But then she looked relieved. “Cave. And it doesn’t look too far from here.” She had to haul him up, and he wondered how she could do it. She was panting afterwards, and he felt ashamed for putting her through that. But he still had to struggle just to keep standing up. His legs were lead.

In later years, Anakin would never be sure how he managed the walk, nearly falling down with every step, wrist held tight in Padmé’s sweaty hand, lungs bursting inside him until he felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. But stepping into the shadow of the cave provided only minimal relief. The beating of the planet’s sun was gone, but the air was still unbreathable, his legs still felt like he couldn't move them, and it was still terribly hot. Anakin thought the heat had killed them early.

A few steps into the cave and he slid out of Padmé’s grip and to the ground. “Go,” he gasped. “Go without me. I can’t keep going.”

“No, Ani, I’m not leaving you,” Padmé grunted. It was taking all her strength to lift him up; he knew it. Yet she was doing so, slinging him over her shoulders. “Just hold on,” she gasped. “The air’s better just a little further in.”

Anakin used the last of his strength to clutch at her tunic. He’d have cried if the planet hadn’t dried him up. He was failing, and now because of his failure she would insist on failing herself. They’d both die here, and it was all his fault.

It was getting cooler now, and darker; Anakin could tell even though he’d screwed his eyes shut. When he lost his grip on her, she took him up in her arms and carried him like a much younger child, a dead weight in her arms.

It wasn’t long after that when she too collapsed. But while Anakin lay nearly passed out on the cave floor, she set to work with the medical kit; he felt her inject him with something. He felt slightly better, and so did the air around him.

“I don’t know how long we can last.” Padmé’s voice was fuzzy, as if she was speaking from far away. I’m going to try to send a distress signal.” He heard the sound of beeping.

Anakin closed his eyes, and knew nothing else.

 

####  **Some Hours Later**

 

A pair of large hands were shaking Anakin awake, along with a voice which was soft but still forceful. He opened his eyes and stared into the face of an old man with a broken nose who he thought might be Master Jinn. “You must get up,” the man was saying. “Can you get up?”

“She’s not waking,” said another voice from nearby.

That got Anakin to raise his head, but he had no energy to react to the horrible sight of Padmé looking so pale and limp that he was sure she had to be dead.

But the older Padawan-Kenobi?- must have guessed what he was thinking, because he said, “She’s alive, but barely. She seems to have all but expended herself for something.”

“I don’t think this young boy should be alive, let alone awake,” Master Jinn answered. “She must have decided to give her life for his.”

“Oh Padmé...” He mouthed the words; he didn’t have the breath to say them. Somehow, this felt worse than both of them dying.

Master Jinn leaned over to examine Padmé, closing his eyes as he took her hand. When he opened them, he said, “It may be possible to save her, but we have to get them both to the shelter as quickly as possible. I’ll contact Mace, tell him I think we’ve bringing the last two survivors we’re going to rescue.”

It soon became clear Anakin could barely crawl, so Master Jinn scooped him up, the same way Padmé had. He could do nothing but watch her, lying in Kenobi’s arms like a corpse, as the walls of the cave flew past them, the two men hurrying down to somewhere where their ship had to be, barely even hearing Master Jinn’s voice as he spoke into a communicator.

He had just finished talking when they reached another one of the pilot ships which everyone had been traveling in, and Anakin was carefully put down onto the co-pilot’s seat. He tried to tell them they’d lost their own ship, and he was sorry, but he still couldn’t speak. Kenobi took the pilot’s seat, and Master Jinn squatted by the seats with Padmé in his arms, pressed against her chest, his eyes closed. What was he doing to her? Was it what she had done to him?

They weren’t up in the air too long before they all started coughing up gunk. Anakin coughed up the most, until he was sitting in disgusting brownish-yellow ooze. He wondered how much gunk Padmé had in her, but she still wasn’t waking.

He stared at her and Master Jinn for a long time, until the latter looked at him, and said, “How well do you know this girl?”

He somehow managed to say, “She’s the only friend I have.” He felt his throat ease; it was getting easier to speak.

“Then you might be able to help me. Come here.”

Anakin obeyed. Master Jinn took his hand and placed it over Padmé’s heart, and he hated how _cold_ she felt. He was hardly able to believe she was still alive.

He did cry then, his tears falling on her chest, and unable to help it he whispered softly, “Padmé, don’t die. Please don’t. Please don’t leave me. I’ll tell all the Masters how strong you were, how you were willing to die to save me, and then they’ll all want to train you, just please Padmé, please wake up!”

“She cannot hear normal speech,” Master Jinn reminded him. “Talk to her through the Force. Reach out to her.”

“I don’t know how to do that!” Anakin sobbed. He wished more than anything he could.

 _“Calm down.”_ The Master's commanding voice cut Anakin’s sobbing off. _“Don’t think. Feel.”_

Anakin thought the Master might even be using some sort of mind trick, but he didn’t care, as long as it saved Padmé. And he was sure his mind was being prodded, and he did as he was told, reaching out with his feelings, begging Padmé not to go, to hear him, to come back. She was a faint presence just out of his grasp, but he thought she heard him. And then she let the Master grasp her, pour strength into her, bring her back to life.

Then she coughed herself awake, heaving gunk all over Anakin’s face, for more tears, of happiness now, to wash away. “You’re okay! You’re going to be okay!”

“Well,” gasped Master Jinn, who didn’t look much better than Padmé at the moment, barely holding her up as she coughed stuff up all over him, “I’ll rest easier when we’re at the shelter. You both still need treatment. Obi-Wan, how far are we?”

“Six minutes, Master.” Anakin heard Kenobi answer. There was something strange in the way he answered, something which made both Master Jinn and Padmé look up, but Anakin couldn’t tell what, and now he was feeling more tired than ever. Padmé’s gunk was getting all over the floor, but he sat down on it anyway, leaned against the bottom of the seat, closed his eyes, and again fell asleep.


	4. Recovery and Reassembling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the Jedi's base, a graver menace arrives.

Anakin woke up clean and whole, in a soft bed, in a brightly-lit room, against which he shut his eyes. He heard footsteps, then a groan nearby that sounded like Padmé, and then a voice asking, “You are awake at last?”

Another groan, and a murmur of “Kenobi?” It was him. Anakin recognized the voice now.

“My Master sent me to see how you two were doing. You’ve both been unconscious for over two days.”

“Oh! Master Yaddle!” So the three of them here meant this had to be some sort of medical place, probably at the shelter.

“She’ll likely live. Though if that weren’t true, you wouldn’t expect to not find her Padawan here. As it is, Master Windu finally had to order her away.”

Oh yes, that would be Oné all right. How’d she get chosen so early anyway? She hadn’t impressed Anakin much so far. All she’d done was sit around and worry about her Master. Padmé had done everything...

“Why are you so upset?” Padmé’s voice cut his train of thought off.

“What?”

“I saw it back in the fighter pilot, and as you were carrying us in here. You seemed especially upset whenever Master Jinn showed special concern towards Anakin over there. Do you think he’s not the Chosen One or something? It’s not his fault that people think he is, you know.”

So that was what had been strange about Kenobi’s response to his Master’s question about how far they were from the shelter. Of course Padmé would have figured it out; she always saw things like that.

“Well, my Master believes he’s the Chosen One. He intends to train him when he’s done with me.”

 _Wait a minute,_ thought Anakin, _they think I’m still asleep!_ But at the same time, he couldn’t help feeling relief at the thought that he would be trained, after all. Kenobi was over twenty years old, so surely he’d be knighted long before Anakin turned thirteen.

“Knight Kenobi,” he heard Padmé’s gentle voice say, “surely you don’t think that just because he plans for a future padawan, it means he thinks any less of you?”

“I am aware it shouldn’t.” But he sure didn’t sound like it to Anakin.

“But why can’t you convince yourself of that?”

“These matters are not your concern, Initiate.”

Anakin wished he hadn’t used her title like that. Kenobi probably didn’t mean to hurt her, but he probably did anyway.

And then, just when he thought Kenobi was coming over to find out he was awake and listening to them, Padme said, almost too soft to hear, “How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

Anakin was wondering the same thing, but from Padme’s impatient sigh, it seemed Kenobi should have known already. “How did you get Master Jinn to take you when you were already in the Corps? I’ve heard the story, of course. Every Initiate who turns twelve without a Master ends up hearing it. You were an inspiration to my friend Sara Tor’nuit, now she’s dead...how did you do it?”

“By a miracle perhaps,” Kenobi said after a minute or so.

“Please say not. Two miracles can’t happen only...ten years apart, would it be?”

“One would assume not. Are you in need of one?”

“You see me here without a Master.”

Kenobi didn’t say anything in reply. But Padmé was good at getting replies out of people. “Did it stay with you?”

“By that statement, I would think you believe it did.”

“Yes, I do. Am I right? Will it stay with me?”

Clever Padmé. Kenobi wouldn’t talk about himself for no good reason, but he would want to help her, so he answered, “Not most of the time, if you don’t let it. The trick is to be aware of your own heart, try to let as little take you by surprise as possible.”

“And this response of yours did-wait a minute, I think Anakin’s awake.”

Now he was in trouble. Lacking the strength to turn around, Anakin lay still and clutched at the sheets. “Does he do this often?” He heard Kenobi ask.

“Do what often?”

“Spy on conversations?”

“I don’t!” Anakin burst out hastily, wishing now he could turn and look.

“He doesn’t, sir.” Padmé repeated. “I guess he was just tired and didn’t think to tell us he was awake. I know I might not have right now.”

“Well, you did very nearly die, Initiate. It took the combined effort of both Skywalker here and my Master to keep you alive.”

“I know,” she said softly, and Anakin could feel her warm feelings very strongly. Had she dropped her shields?

Kenobi’s face appeared in his line of vision. “You both seem well enough for two people who recently spent hours in carbon-shock, especially at your young age.”

“She saved me,” Anakin reminded him.

“So I’ve heard. I shall tell my Master you are doing well. Good day.”

“Wait.” When Padmé said this, it sounded like the kind of thing she said without thinking.

“Yes, Initiate?” Obi-Wan clearly sounded impatient. Anakin just felt cross that he’d called her Initiate again, when her problem had actually been brought up.

He felt especially cross when he heard the pain in Padmé’s voice as she said, “Never mind.”

And off Kenobi went, and they heard the door close behind him, leaving Anakin to suddenly feel terrible. “Padmé, why can’t you get a Master at all, and why can’t I get a Master without messing things up between him and his current Padawan?”

“Are you two awake?” Master Windu had come in.

“Yes, Master, only just now,” said Padmé, and then Anakin heard her groan.

“Don’t try to sit up yet,” Master Windu said gently. Anakin though Padmé must have tried to. “You very nearly died only two days ago.”

“How much longer are all of you going to stay here? Don’t you need to go back to Coruscant?”

“We have received word again that the battle is over. Unless that is contradicted again, we stay here until everyone is able to travel. If you wish, I will turn you around so you may see the others in here.”

“What about Master Yaddle? Doesn’t she need Master Yoda?”

“Actually, this climate is beneficial to her.” Anakin couldn’t hold back a snort.

“Ani!” Padmé snapped at him. “Who else is here, Master?”

He heard a rustling sound, and guessed Master Windu was turning Padmé over. “We rescued eight survivors besides the four of you. Padawan Madierre and Initiates Oggslayer and Amersu landed close enough to the shelter to get here without any trouble. Initiates Tork and Hu’mas also landed fairly close, and made it here, but Hu’mas had a particular intolerance to the atmosphere and died anyway, only a few hours ago. Initiate Olin did what you did to preserve Initiate Niso, but he was dead when we found them. Nor were we able to save Initiate Tatus, though his sacrifice saved Initiate Kon.”

“I see Tru Veld survived too. That’s him right there, isn’t it?”

“It is. Unfortunately, Initiate Ashlk, who was with him, did not. Initiate Seirr, who as you know flew alone, found Initiates Somtay and Gredi, and his actions no doubt saved the former, but there was nothing he could do for the latter. Initiate Weet died before we got to him, and Initiates Monn and Offee both died when their ship crashed.”

Anakin had known Lils Gredi. She was one of his clanmates, the most eager and energetic of any of them. She also had a lot of trouble in their classes, and they all knew she probably would have left them, hopefully for the Exploratory Corps, where he thought she might have been happy. It was hard for him to imagine her being dead.

“Have any of them woken up?”

“Almost all of them at some point or other. I believe Veld is the only one who has not yet.”

“Good. More than enough people have died already.”

Meanwhile Anakin had been getting his courage up, and now said, “Master Windu, sir?”

“Yes, Initiate?” Master Windu sounded imposing, even when he might not mean to, and Anakin was nervous, but he managed to ask, “Could you turn me around, sir?”

Both he and Padmé chuckled, and Anakin felt a pair of big hands grip him and roll him over, smushing a few cords under him. He hadn’t noticed that there were cords plugged into him before. He could see Padmé now, or her back anyway, as she was turned away from him. Master Yaddle was asleep in the bed between them. On Padmé’s other side, Anakin could just see what looked like other Initiates. “Thank you, Master.”

“Please, Master, if you could turn me back over as well?” He did so, and Anakin and Padmé were face to face. She looked worn out, both glad and sad, but peaceful. He felt better seeing her like this.

“You both need to get more rest,” Master Windu advised them. “Twelve more hours, at least, after which you, at least,” he added, looking at Anakin, “should gain all your muscle strength back.”

And so he left, and Anakin and Padmé were left alone together again. “He’s right, Ani,” she said. “Go back to sleep.” And she closed her eyes. Anakin did too; the last thing he saw before doing so was Padmé’s smile.

 

####  **Over Twelve Hours Later**

 

Anakin woke up to the unmistakable sound of Padmé in pain. He pulled himself out of bed hurried over to her, yanking the cords out of his body and knocking himself into the bed with Master Yaddle several times before he got there.

She was still rolled on her side, and it looked like she was clutching at her stomach. “Padme? What’s wrong? Did you eat something?”

“No,” she groaned, “it’s nothing to worry about.”

“It doesn’t sound like it!”

But Padmé wasn’t completely awake, he thought, because now she was muttering things at random, “Can’t...too tired...it’s never hurt before...”

“What’s never hurt before?” But Padmé only scrunched herself up and shook her head to ward off further questions.

Anakin decided he needed the Masters for this. He took off at a run, but outside the Infirmary he found himself running out of the breath. He stumbled along, clutching the wall, making himself keep going, until he heard the voices of the people he was looking for.

He ran into a room, yelling, “Masters! Masters! Something’s wrong with Padmé!”

Master Jinn, Master Windu, and Padawan Kenobi all leapt to their feet. “What?”

“She’s got a pain in her stomach, and she insists it’s nothing to worry about, but she can’t do something because she’s too tired! She also said something about it never hurting before...”

“Where on her stomach?” asked Master Windu. “Do you know?”

Anakin tried to remember. “Pretty low on it, I think.”

Master Jinn and Padawan Kenobi still looked confused, but Master Windu obviously knew whatever was wrong with Padmé. “Skywalker,” he said, “I need you to find Padawan Madierre. She should be with some of the other Initiates in the next room.”

He didn’t at all get why they needed Oné, but he didn’t protest. He ran into the next room as Master Windu strode down the corridor to the sickbay.

“Oné! Oné!” he yelled. “Padmé needs you!”

“What?” Oné was seated with Xiaan and Mirk Oggslayer.

Anakin explained, and Oné must have figured out what was wrong too, because off she ran, so quick Anakin couldn't keep up with her. She went on ahead of him, and he just tried to get back to the sickbay too.

When he finally limped back in, Master Windu was seated on Padmé’s bed, and while Padmé was turned away from them, she was clearly better. “Stress?” they heard her ask.

“It was what always seemed the case for Depa. She suffered more often, but by the time she was knighted, her ability to deal with pain was difficult to match.”

Oné was offered her hand. “Here, Padmé, let me help you into the ‘fresher. Don’t protest, you really shouldn’t be getting out of bed at all yet.”

She was right about that. Silly Padmé jumped up a little too quickly, then fell down and had to be caught.

“Why don’t you help her?” Anakin asked Master Windu. “You’re stronger.”

“Padawan Madierre can handle it.” By now Anakin was pretty sure there was something nobody was telling him.

Especially because Padmé was looking at Master Windu with the weirdest expression on her face, as if trying to figure something out. She kept her eyes on him all the while that Oné pushed her into the ‘fresher.

“How old is she?” Master Windu asked Anakin when the door had closed behind them.

“She’ll be twelve in...” He spent a minute or so trying to count back the days since they’d fled Coruscant. If he’d been asleep about another day since the last time he’d woken up, it had been nine days. What an eventful nine days! “Twenty-one days.”

“So soon? I thought she was younger. I had heard she was from Naboo, and would look older than she actually is.”

“She is from Naboo, but that’s how old she is. She needs to get a Master soon. You just lost your Padawan, didn’t you?”

“I did. Because of that, for me to take her on now might be unwise.”

“But someone has to!”

Before Master Windu could say anything to that, Oné came out of the fresher, and said, “It’s okay, her muscles are regaining strength. She’ll want a new medical gown though.”

“Why?” Anakin asked. But Oné only scooped one up and went back into the fresher without saying anything more.

“And you would be about seven, I believe,” said Master Windu, looking at Anakin with some confusion.

“Six,” Anakin corrected him.

“Ah. That explains it.” Before Anakin could ask what his being six instead of seven explained, Padmé and Oné came back out, Oné supporting Padmé, who was now protesting, “I can walk, you don’t need to carry me.”

She really didn’t look very happy, so Anakin said, “Master Yaddle looks a little different, I think.”

That didn’t get Oné to let go of Padmé, only to try to look over her at her Master. “I see no change,” Master Windu said, then turned and glared at Anakin in a way that made the boy feel just a little nervous.

“Well, from what you said, there shouldn’t be, should there?” Padmé pointed out.

“You’re right. He must have been seeing things. Up you go, Padmé.”

Master Windu got off the bed as Oné helped Padmé back onto it. “Come with me,” he said to Anakin, and Anakin knew he was in trouble. But there was no way to escape, so he obeyed, even if he dragged his feet a little.

Outside the Infirmary, Master Windu turned and seized Anakin by the shoulders so he couldn’t look away and said to him, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I’m sorry,” said Anakin, hoping Master Windu would go away after hearing this.

But Master Windu kept his hold on Anakin, and continued on, “Did you consider Padawan Madierre’s feelings before you gave her a false hope? Her Master’s condition has been a cause of great distress to her, and I would expect better of her fellow Jedi than to see them cause her more disappointment, especially with the motive of impending her in her duty.”

But now Anakin was getting angry, and he growled out, “All this fuss about Oné, why? She hasn’t done anything she was supposed to! Now you’re going to give her all the credit for everything Padmé did, while Padmé-”

“This is not about Padawan Madierre or Initiate Naberrie,” Master Windu started to say, and something about the soft way he said it really scared Anakin, but then he stopped and looked up, and Anakin suddenly knew that something else was very wrong.

Master Windu turned around and ran back into the Infirmary, Anakin running after him. There they found Padmé trying to push herself up, as she gazed, terrified, at the nearby wall. “Where’s Padawan Madierre?” Master Windu asked her.

“She took Master Yaddle into the ’fresher.” Padmé answered without looking back at him. “Please, Master, _what’s behind there?”_

“I don’t know, but it isn’t good. The Dark Side is very strong.”

He removed his lightsaber from his belt and ignited it just in time to bring it up against the bright red blade of a lightsaber wielded by a monster with a red and black face, big black robes, and mad yellow eyes that were the scariest thing of all. He left behind huge holes in the wall and ceiling, and he’d come in so fast Anakin couldn’t tell which one he’d gone through.

Anakin moved to Padmé’s bed and crouched behind her, then on second thought, put himself in front of her to protect her. “Is that a Sith?” he asked in a frightened whisper.

“I don’t know,” Padmé whispered back. She was scared too, but she had taken out her lightsaber and ignited it anyway. She pulled at the back of Anakin’s tunic, and he obediently scooted back against her so she could hold the blade out in front of them both.

Master Windu was spinning and twisting around the room, blade locked with the Sith monster, and Anakin didn’t know whether he would win or not. Then there was the sound of hissing from the direction of the Infirmary door, and everyone turned in time to see Master Jinn kick most of the door aside and fly at the monster, Padawan Kenobi right behind him.

The Sith looked at them, then turned and advanced on Anakin and Padmé with blade raised. Anakin heard Padmé scream right along with him, which made him even more terrified.

There was a flash of blue and two flashes of green, and then the Sith staggered back, half of his arm severed. At the sight of it Anakin screamed again.

He called his lightsaber to his other hand and with a touch to it ignited a second blade, but all three of the adults were surrounding him and it really looked like he was going to lose. He must have thought that too, for he hissed out, and his voice made Anakin feel very, very cold, “I will have my revenge on all five of you!” and threw himself upwards through the ceiling.

The other three spent a second staring up into the new hole. Then Master Windu seemed to snap into action. “Kenobi, get to the array and identify his ship. If he managed to sneak in here we’re not going to be able to catch him today, but let’s get as much information about him as we can. Bring a copy of the recordings with you to the emergency transport. Qui-Gon, gather the Younglings and bring them down to the transport.”

Both men flew out of the room. Master Windu took his lightsaber and cut a hole in the ‘fresher door, and Oné sprang out, blade raised. Then she saw who it was and retreated, apologizing, saying something about the door having locked. "I don't even know how. I didn't lock it."

“How he managed to seal all the doors is a question for another time. Get your Master. We’re going.” He reattached his lightsaber to his belt before moving back to Padmé’s bed, and gesturing for Anakin to move aside.

Anakin did so, but he wasn’t happy to. He wasn’t sure why. It was pretty obvious he was going to have to pick up Padmé and carry her down to the emergency transport, and pick up Padmé was what he did. But there was something about the whole thing that he didn’t like.

Maybe it was the way Padmé was looking at him. Hadn’t he said that he couldn’t take her as a Padawan if he’d just lost one? And Padmé had to know that; she was smart. So why was she staring at him in that weird hopeful manner?

 _She doesn’t need him,_ he thought. _There’ll be plenty of Masters willing to train her after this, won’t there? I wish she wouldn’t cling at him like that. He’s old and stern; I bet he won’t like it._ But right then Master Windu didn’t seem to notice her behavior at all.

He was paying more attention to Oné, who had taken her Master back into her arms but was having trouble keeping her there. “Slippery!” she exclaimed.

“Help her, Skywalker.”

Anakin wanted to ask how, but he was afraid to now. So he could only dart over to Oné and use his hands to try to steady Master Yaddle. When Oné had a firm grip on her Master, they hurried after Master Windu, who was striding down the corridor. They really had to run as he went faster. By the time they had caught up with him, they were all on a downward slant, turning round and round until Anakin thought they were traveling back the way they had came below the original corridor.

They reached a small hanger which a single ship in it. At first glance Anakin wondered if it could hold all of them.

“Start getting the ship ready,” Master Windu ordered Oné, and he put Padmé down by its side and went off somewhere; Anakin wasn’t sure where.

“Can you stand unaided?” Oné asked Padmé, who tried to pull herself up. She was leaning heavily against the side of the ship. Finally she replied, “Don’t think so.”

“Just a moment, then.” She stepped into the ship and presumably put Master Yaddle down somewhere. “Skywalker? We’ll carry her together.”

“Okay,” said Anakin, and he reached up and took a hold of one of Padmé’s arms.

“No, like this.” One took his hands and placed them on Padmé’s side. “Hold on to her tightly.” Then she herself wrapped her arm around Padme and said, “Now lift.”

She really was very heavy. Anakin wondered how Padawan Kenobi had been able to run while carrying her. Even with Padmé’s feet on the ground, she supporting as much of her weight as she could by herself, they had to stagger with her into the ship. The two of them fell together against the bulkhead while Oné raced to the ship’s controls. Padmé managed to scoop up Master Yaddle and place her on Anakin’s lap. She then put her arms around him and her head fell down on his shoulder.

Anakin was feeling tired himself. He thought maybe he should stay awake in case he needed to help further, but after all that running it was way too difficult...

 

####  **Much Later**

 

A pair of arms were rocking Anakin, calming him, as a soft voice sung to him. He didn’t know where he was or who was holding him, but he felt safe and protected.

Strange how those arms were growing smaller, or maybe he was just growing bigger, and now he was pressed against the body of she who held him, but on she sang,

 _What will come with another day?_  
How I wish that I could say,   
All I can say is that I’ll keep you here,   
Safe in my arms you have nothing to fear

 _Sleep my baby, la loo loo,_  
Lee lee la, loo loo baby,   
Oh my lovely baby,   
Sleep my baby, sleep

Then he finally became fully aware of where he was and how old he was, and what was just his memory, and what that memory meant, and he looked up at Padmé in astonishment as she stopped singing, and whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me it was you?”

“What are you talking about?” she whispered back, looking confused.

“When I was a baby. Why didn’t you tell me you’d sung that song to me once?”

Then her eyes grew wide, and she asked, “That was you?”

“Oh, you didn’t realize it was me?”

“No, I was just handed a baby to put to bed, when I myself had only arrived at the Temple and been left in the creche to wait until I had a clan. And he-you-started crying, so I held you and sung you that lullaby.”

“Wow. So we’ve known each other all this time, and we didn’t even know it.” He liked that. He felt as if he’d known Padmé all his life already. Though he was kind of sad that this meant he really did have no memories of his mother at all.

“I was always sad that I couldn’t find you again,” Padmé said. “I couldn’t tell which one of the babies you were after that afternoon. Looks like you were just under my nose.”

So she was happy, and he was happy, and they were flying back to the Jedi Temple, and she was sure to get a Master when they got there. But even so, Anakin knew things were probably not going to go well for anyone after this. In case he had forgotten, he was still holding Master Yaddle, who was as unconscious as ever.


	5. When Things Start to Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Initiates return to the Temple, things for them are not what they were.

They got back to Coruscant without anything else happening. They took turns looking out the ship’s windows, and they all gaped at what had once been the Jedi Temple.

“It’s actually not all destroyed,” Master Jinn assured them. “Remember, much of the Temple stretches down to the lower levels.”

“But it looks so...” Mirk Oggslayer started, but he couldn’t seem to find the words to go on.

“How it looks is not important,” replied Master Jinn. “You should know by now not to be deceived by appearances, Initiate.”

“I don’t think it’s that any of us are deceived, Master,” said Padmé. “It’s just that...”

“Ah, but you are, in your hearts. Your heads are not deceived, no, but your hearts deceive themselves. You must learn to listen to the truer parts of your heart, and then you will know better than this.”

Anakin tried to listen to that part of his heart, but he couldn’t find it. When he looked at Padmé, who was staring at the middle of the ship and not looking out of the windows anymore, he didn’t think she could find it either.

Oné, on the other hand, had her face pressed to the window, obviously looking for Master Yoda. Next to Anakin, Octus pointed his thumb at her and said, “Getting a little silly, isn’t she?”

“Don’t talk that way,” Padmé scolded. “It’s cruel.”

“It’s not that bad,” Octus protested.

“It’s bad enough,” she insisted, “because you’re not thinking before you speak. Think about how long her Master’s been in that coma, and think about how that must make her feel. And then to talk about her like that?”

But Anakin wasn’t sure Oné had even heard Octus anyway, and now she cried out and Padmé looked out the window again and said, “Master Yoda’s here. He’s just outside. There are bunch of other Council members with him, I think.”

Anakin had noted by now that you could always tell when a bunch of Jedi Masters were around. It felt different. Everyone in the shuttle was now trying to get themselves to their feet and be the first ones out.

“Let Oné out first,” Padmé tried to suggest as her Padawan gathered Master Yaddle into her arms and tried to push her way to the front of the crowd, but the others mostly weren’t listening. She and Anakin themselves weren’t close enough to the front of the shuttle to get out quickly, but they weren’t in any hurry. To get out meant to have to look at the ruins of their home without anything blocking the way.

Master Windu, on the other hand, was already gone; none of them dared get in his way. Master Jinn probably could have done the same, but instead he stayed back, talking quietly to Padawan Kenobi as the two of them surveyed the Initiates. Anakin watched their eyes travel over him, but they didn’t stop on him; they weren’t paying attention to him right now.

Oné was starting to get really tense, and Anakin was just getting worried she might start shoving and kicking to get her Master outside when a voice known well to each and every one there said, “Come in, I must. See Padawan Madierre, I must.”

In front of Oné somehow an empty space was formed. Anakin could see it clearly from where Padmé now picked him up to make more room on the ship floor. Getting to it was no trouble to Master Yoda; a light somersault up to the ship’s ceiling and he landed in front of she who looked like she was going to start crying with joy. Surely that was against the Code, to feel that much over this.

But if it was, Master Yoda was being nice about it. When Oné, with difficulty, squatted down in the limited space and tenderly placed her fallen Master in front of him, he reached up to touch her bowed head. “Done very well, you have, Padawan Madierre. Very well.”

The passengers were now finally starting to really empty out; Anakin heard Padmé breath out her relief when she was able to put him back down, and they flowed with the crowd. One color of steel beneath their feet descended to another color of steel, and they once again breathed the air of Coruscant, which still smelt a little smoky.

Master Ki-Adi-Mundi was there with a couple of other people Anakin didn’t recognize, and he and Master Windu were in intense conversation. Padmé was holding his hand, and she wouldn’t stop watching them, though Anakin didn’t see the point when they couldn’t hear them. It was a little annoying, because the others were spreading out, stretching their legs after days of being cooped up together, and he wanted to walk, or run, or maybe even do a kata, anything but just stand still there. He tugged at Padmé’s arm. “Come on, Padmé,” he said, “let’s go to the edge of the platform and look down to see where we are.”

She was reluctant; her eyes were fixed on Master Windu. Even if she did have some weird hope he’d take her as a Padawan, this didn’t make sense; he probably wasn’t going to notice her right now, any more than Master Jinn had noticed Anakin. “Come on!” he said again.

But just then the two Masters finished talking, and Master Windu yelled out, “Everyone!” They all stopped and looked at him as avidly as Padmé. “Master Mundi is here to escort you to your new quarters, where you’ll be sleeping for the time being. Initiate Naberrie?” Padmé nearly hurtled herself in their direction, forgetting to let go of Anakin so he was dragged along. “You are by some way the oldest surviving Initiate left after the attack, which means you will have to take on a new kind of responsibility. Much of time you will be left in charge of the dormitory, and you will have to keep everyone in order and report back to us if there are any serious problems. Everyone, from now on, Initiate Padmé Naberrie is in charge of you, and you are to do as she says, does everyone understand?”

Padmé was lighting up like one of those crystals back on Ilum, and Anakin, too, had to grin. This was perfect; he and Padmé would be together for some time yet clearly, and then someone was sure to choose her and start training her.

But as they lined up, Master Windu spoke again to Padmé, “Come a little ahead with me alone,” and even though Anakin had been wishing Padmé would let go of him only a few minutes ago, now he didn’t like how quickly she dropped his hand and hurried off to his side. He wanted to bolt after them, to find out what they were talking about, as from the side of Master Mundi he watched them walk a few meters ahead of the group. “What’s he saying to her?” he finally worked up the nerve to demand of the Cerean.

“Just giving her furthers instructions and advice,” said Master Mundi, and that might have been mostly true, but towards the end of their conversation, Anakin saw Padmé hand fly up to her mouth, as if he’d told her something alarming. Then she fell away from him, and was soon walking with them again.

“What did he tell you?” Anakin whispered.

“I might you later,” she whispered back. It was a jolt for Anakin to realize he didn't entirely believe her. That had never happened between him and Padmé before.

 

####  **That Evening**

 

Anakin had pestered Padmé for much of their first day back on Coruscant, but now, at last, having been put in the bunk below her in the three large rooms in which all the Order’s remaining Initiates were crowded into to sleep, he had succumbed to physical exhaustion, as had most of her other new charges. A few of them were still playing about, trying to outdo each other with learner’s katas or looking for something to climb; nothing that required her immediate intervention. Which was good, because she herself was more tired than she’d ever been in her life. Yet her head was too full to sleep.

She could still hear Master Windu, “I hope you understand, Initiate Naberrie, that this is not over, but is only beginning. One of the attacker’s ships crashed against the Temple’s side. We found its computer, and not all the databanks were passed retrieval. They contain records of other strikes, other plans, maybe even other minions, beyond those who were killed here at the Temple. They may even build an entire army.”

An entire army! One of the more alarming open secrets within the Jedi Order, the one nobody talked about but the older ones probably went to pains to conceal from the general public, was that the number of Jedi had been decreasing. Fewer parents were willing to give up their children than in earlier ages, when the Order had been held in higher esteem, and Padmé thought there had been more Jedi killed each year than there had been in the immediately preceding centuries. And they had never been the kind of organization that was meant to fight against an army. There were probably only a few hundred of them currently alive after the events of the last few days.

_A single attack by a sufficiently large force could probably wipe us all out._ Padmé shivered as she thought about it, her hand straying to her new lightsaber, which was a reassurance on her hip, an object shaped by her own fingers, a crystal at its heart that belonged there, within her reach. And yet she supposed it was not right, the surge of violence she felt when she thought about hundreds of soldiers charging into the Initiate’s new quarters, her their first defense. And she knew for sure it wasn’t, what she felt when she looked at Anakin in particular, sleeping innocently below her, and thought about what she might do to protect him, even above the others.

Her mind was about as far from a peaceful state as it was possible to be when she heard the footsteps outside, and while she knew quickly enough it was another Jedi, not an enemy, still her mind was having trouble staying unclouded, and each little sound of boots on the floor jarred her nerves anew. Still she was used to hiding her inner turmoils. She was confident she was the picture of serenity as she rose to greet the young Twi’lek Padawan, whom she believed to be called Aayla Secura, when she came in.

"My name is Aayla Secura," she confirmed. “I’ll be helping you with the Younglings over the next few days while my Master is doing some things he has to do on his own.” Padmé knew she was apprenticed to Master Vos, who took very lengthy and very dangerous missions. She believed her hadn’t been in the Temple during the battle, but might have even come back to fight in it.

Even in the past(had it really been such a short time ago, the time that was now a completely different era?), this had hardly been unknown, for a younger Padawan learner to visit the Initiates dormitory and supervise them while their Master probably did something too dangerous to involve them. What those Masters might be up to would be the topic of excited speculation for days after the Padawan would leave. And there were a lot of dangerous things to be done now, no doubt, so this all made sense. It was also a great relief.

Before Padmé could respond Xiaan Amersu, Aayla’s fellow Twi’lek, spotted her and came bounding up. She nearly leapt on top of her she hugged her from behind, squealing her name and something else in Twi’leki.

“You should speak Standard in front of Initiate Naberrie,” said Aayla gently, but her smile was very wide. “But I am very glad to see you alive and well.”

“It was terrible, Aayla,” sighed Xiaan as she flipped herself right over Aayla in her excitement, doing a pretty good modified version of the Leth Kata as she landed on her feet. “We had to fly so long, and Mirk, Mirk Oggslayer, you know, I flew with him, said the ship was going to run out of fuel, but it didn’t, and I think he must have just been trying to scare us.” Actually, he hadn’t been; there’d been a leak and at one point there had been a real possibility of getting stranded, but Padmé didn’t say anything about that.

Even if Aayla said crossly, “That was wrong of him, to try that. This has been difficult enough for you and for everyone else without anyone telling false tales.”

“Well Octus didn’t believe him,” said Xiaan, then her tone become more hushed as she said, “Though he said we had to flee because a Sith Lord broke in and tried to kill Master Yaddle.”

That the younger Twi’lek clearly did believe, as she looked expectantly between them. Padmé caught Aayla’s eye, and was certain too that the Padawan knew at least part of the truth. But she said nothing, so neither did Padmé.

The words of that dark Zabrak creature came back to her: “I will have my revenge on all five of you.” She had no doubt he meant it, that he had memorized all five of their faces. She suppressed a shudder. He had seemed so strong and powerful. If he found her again, could it ever be at a time when she would be able to defend herself against him?

When Xiaan realized no one was going to tell her if there really had been a Sith Lord, or if he had tried to kill Master Yaddle, she continued on: “Did you know we saw two planets? Though the second one wasn’t a nice one at all. I didn’t see much of it anyway.”

Padmé’s curiosity rose then, and though it had to war with the ugly memories of her own experience, even though much of what had happened out on the surface of Polsing had blurred together for her after she’d woken up in the sickbed. Aayla was even more curious, saying eagerly, “Is it true the first one was Ilum, that you got to look at the crystals? Master Vos says he’s going to take me there to get a crystal, but of course he can’t right now.”

“That’s too bad,” said Xiaan. “Everyone should see that place as soon as possible.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Padmé, as she remembered something Master Windu had told her: “It works better if you’re ready for it.”

Xiaan threw her a dirty look, her lekku twitching almost with petulance. But Aayla nodded her agreement; Master Vos has probably told her something like that too. Not for the first time Padmé was aware how much more like the Padawans she wanted to join she was than the Initiates she was still grouped among.

Then she said, “I’m going to go for a walk with Initiate Naberrie. It’ll only be a short one, and then I’ll come see you again, okay?”

“Okay,” said Xiaan, though she didn’t sound entirely happy about it.

They walked together into the next room, where a quick glance around left them fairly confident all the Initiates on the bunks here were asleep. “Any news?” Padmé asked her companion.

“Master Windu instructed me to tell you one thing,” said Aayla. “That is that he will likely be among those Jedi who will go out to search for the Sith, or at least more information on them and their possible army. He leaves probably in a couple of weeks, and thinks he will likely be out a month. He will be very interested, however, in seeing how the Initiates are coming along when he gets back.”

Padmé understood. Even when his padawan newly dead, he was seriously considering taking her as a replacement, as least when he himself was emotionally ready for one-from what she’d seen of him, he’d be ready long before she was thirteen. But a Master like Mace Windu she had to prove herself worthy of.

Anakin, she found herself thinking, would insist she was worthy of him already. She remembered his words, all of them running through his head, about how brave and strong and just generally amazing she had been, and it made her aware she had done pretty well, everything considered.

It made her think she could do it. That even if Master Windu was hard to impress, she was capable.

Unless she displeased him somehow, and he deemed her unworthy to be anyone’s Padawan. Then she might get sent off before she was thirteen, the way Obi-Wan had been.

Or he might be killed. In which case Anakin was probably right in that there were multiple Masters who would be interested in training her, even if they all would probably let him decide whether he wanted her first before approaching, so she’d probably end up with one of them. But even with her own future thus not at stake, Padmé felt her heart crying loud in protest, that Master Windu couldn’t be killed, not like that, not when they needed him, not when he was so great and magnificent and would be such a terrible loss to the galaxy.

 

####  **A Few Days Later**

 

“Is everyone here?” Padmé was walking back and forth at the front of the biggest room in the new Initiate quarters, where most of the others were seated, Anakin included, of course, waiting for the arrival of Master Yaddle. It would be the first time they’d seen her since their return to Coruscant, and everyone was curious to see how she was doing. Usually not everyone was there when they were all gathered for the arrival of someone and that someone wasn’t expected for ten more minutes, but that day Anakin thought everyone really was there.

Still Padmé was doing roll call, starting with Xiaan and going on all the way to Yupi Z’zar, finishing up just as a little figure toddled in, followed by Padawan Secura, but it was not Master Yaddle. Anakin had never thought he could be disappointed to see Master Yoda, but now he blurted out, “Is Master Yaddle not coming?”

“Coming, she is,” said Master Yoda. “But not yet. Patience.” He hadn’t been going that fast, but now he went slower, taking time to look over each of them as he passed. He stopped before Grands Niso, who was still suffering occasional tiredness after his ordeal on Polsing, and asked him how he was. On hearing he was tired, he chuckled slightly and said, “Go to bed earlier, you should, then. Fall asleep right now, you will not, hmmmm?”

“Of course not, Master Yoda,” Grands assured him.

Finally he took to the center of the room, and said, “An important announcement, I have to make. Know, you all do, that we have lost many lives in the attack?”

“Yes, Master Yoda,” said Padmé, who had finally stopped pacing, though she was still standing up.

“So need more Initiates, we do. So decided, the Council did, to accept some new Initiates which we would not normally. Coming in with Master Yaddle, three of them are. Their names are Ellé Okrest, Jia’mosa Grt, and Donnie Briggs. Strong as you, they are not. More time to master katas and the Force, they will need than you. But Jedi, they are capable of being, and kind and patience with them, you all must be.”

“How many will be coming?” Padmé asked.

“An exact number, we do not yet have. Up to possibly nine. Five for certain. Maybe more in the next few months.”

Anakin had been thinking mainly that it would be annoying to have classmates that would take longer than the rest of them to learn things, but he then found himself thinking instead that five was a very small number of new Initiates even when compared with how many of them had died after fleeing Coruscant, let alone how many padawans and Knights and Masters had also been killed. Nine wasn’t as bad considering just the Initiates, but still way too small considering how many lives had been lost in total. The Jedi Order was going to have to look harder.

The murmur hadn’t died down before Master Yaddle came in, though it did then. Anakin took in the trio of new Initiates with her, two girls and a boy. One of the girls was even smaller than she was, and the other two only slightly taller.

Everyone was looking at them, of course, which seemed to make the taller girl shrink into herself a little bit as Yoda moved away and let the four of them take his place right in front of the crowd, though the other two looked boldly back. Anakin promptly liked them more.

Yaddle introduced them: Jia’mosa Grt was the boy, Ellé Okrest the taller girl, and Donnie Briggs the shorter girl. Then she told them to tell the group what planets they were from, and Anakin had never heard of the planets Jia’mosa and Donnie were from, he knew how excited Padmé had to get when Ellé answered, “I am from Naboo.”

“Wow, like Initiate Naberrie here!” exclaimed Tru Veld.

“Really? You’re from Naboo too?” Ellé moved as if was thinking about running forward, before remembering herself and stopping.

Anakin could see Padmé exchanging looks with Master Yaddle, his friend asking permission. With it granted, she walked up to Ellé, and then knelt down just enough for them to be at eye level. She introduced herself, and asked Ellé where on Naboo she was from. “Theed,” the girl said. “The capital.”

That made her bite her lip. She probably wanted to ask more. In fact, Anakin thought he might be seeing a lot more of Ellé; Padmé would make a big friend here. But this wasn’t the right time to have this kind of conversation, so she just said. “I am very pleased to meet you. Welcome to the Temple.”

Sure enough, while the lesson ended up being pretty ordinary, simple enough that the five newcomers would’ve had to be really, really weak to not be able to catch up, at the end, when everyone else went up to Master Yaddle to ask her how she was, though she’d seemed just fine during the lesson, if not moving around too much, Padmé went over to Ellé. “Would you like to have lastmeal with me and my friend, Anakin? I’ve never been to Theed; I’d like to hear more about it. It’s okay with you, isn’t it, Ani?”

Well, it had to be; it would have been very mean to tell the new girl you didn’t want to eat with her. So Anakin just nodded. But he wondered what it would be like if Ellé kept eating with them. He sometimes thought the times he was happiest were when it was just him and Padmé around and no one else. Would that all change too now?

Then again, he reminded himself, she probably was going to become a Padawan soon, so it would probably change anyway. Except he didn’t want to think about her going away like that.

The trip to the Refectory took longer than it used to, and required them to go up a number of stairs. There might have been a lift they could have used, but Anakin and Padmé typically liked the walk. Except Anakin didn’t like it today; Ellé was there, and he didn’t mind her, but it meant he and Padmé weren’t alone, and it gave him too much time to think about sad topics, like more about Padmé leaving, and about their friends who had died, and he knew things were still pretty dangerous too.

But of course Padmé noticed, and when they were nearly there she moved to kind of place her arm around him, and said, “It’s all right, Ani. Tomorrow morning if you get up early enough I’ll get up early too, and we can practice katas together.” That made him feel better, though he did find himself thinking that was going to be another change, that he and Padmé might not just sit and talk anymore, because she would always be working on something. She’d been like that since they’d come back.

He should’ve expected at lastmeal he wouldn’t be included in much of the conversation. Of course all Padmé and Ellé were going to talk about was Naboo. At least it was something he was actually pretty interested in hearing about. Padmé had told him about a lot of it already, of course, but she didn’t remember it as well as she used to, and she had never been to Theed, though she had told him once her parents had seriously been considering moving there when the Jedi had come for her. Ellé talked about big white buildings and broad, bright roads, and how the rich people dressed in Theed, and how she had once seen the planet’s King from a high window. Poor girl, she thought the part about the King was much more impressive than it actually was, but Anakin and Padmé both knew better.

He did get to join the conversation towards the end of the meal, when they started talking about their own lives again. Ellé had already heard much of the story of how the Temple had recently been attacked and they’d all had to flee, but she was really interested in hearing about them searching for their crystals on Ilum, and how Anakin had been able to find his crystal when he had quieted his mind down. On hearing that Anakin was now carrying the crystal around in his belt pouch she wanted to see it, so he took it out and showed it to her. He was getting kind of used to it now; for a while after they’d gotten back to the Temple he’d sometimes taken it out just to look at it, but he hadn’t done that in the last couple of days. It was kind of wonderful to see it again, and see how awed Ellé was by it.

So that was nice, but as it always was now, it was a little less nice when Padmé started talking about Master Windu. In fact, it was even worse, because Anakin only learned when Padmé told Ellé that she had seen him only a couple of days ago, when she had been running an errand for Master Koth(who apparently was a very good friend of Master Windu, to the point they had entered the Concordance of Fealty, though Padmé actually didn’t know what that was), and he had stopped her and spent over half an hour asking her questions, mostly general ones about how the Initiates were all doing, Padmé said to Ellé, but also a couple about her, if she was doing the katas he’d talked to her about(and when had he been talking to her about katas?!), how was she helping to manage to Initiates, did she remember what he had told her about controlling her feelings?

After hearing about all that, Anakin was completely focused on asking Padmé hadn’t told him about all that already as soon as they were alone, and so had trouble paying attention to the rest of what the two girls talked about. But the end of the meal took longer because while he and Padmé still finished at the same time, Ellé took a couple more minutes, and of course Padmé would never get up and leave her there, and because he wanted to stay with her Anakin sat there too, feeling ridiculous because he had nothing to do but watched Ellé take her last bites. But at last she finished, and they returned their trays, and then Anakin worried she might stay with them all the way back to the dormitories or possibly even the entire night, but fortunately some of the other younger Initiates were also getting up, and they called over to Ellé to come join them, and she said goodbye and went away.

For a moment Anakin wondered if he should ask her when they were in the hallways. Before the attack, they would never have done that. But now that they were all more crowded together, there was a good chance they wouldn’t have the privacy for it back in the dormitory. So first he asked her if she could sense anything in hearing range, because she was still better at that than he was, and then when she said she couldn’t, he asked it as they walked.

He actually wasn’t as loud about as he wanted to be because of where they were, but even so she looked a little surprised by how aggressively he talked about it. Had one of the Masters heard they might have even scolded him for it. It didn’t make him happy, either, that she had trouble answering. The first thing she said was, “I don’t know, I...” and there was a pause before she came up with, “There wasn’t a moment to. We don’t have much time alone together anymore, and when we did we had too many other things to talk about.”

“So it wasn’t that you didn’t want to tell me?” Anakin challenged, because he somehow felt it was.

“No!” she protested, and it wasn’t that he didn’t believe her, mostly, but still he felt some doubt. At least he did believe her more completely when she added, “Anakin, if I ever *really* think Master Windu or any other Master is about to take me as a Padawan, I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to tell you as fast as possible.”

“You do have to get used to the idea, though,” she continued as they turned a corner and got into a lift together. “Remember, Ani, even if I’m not taken as a Padawan, we’ll still be separated when I turn thirteen, or when Padawan Kenobi is knighted and Master Jinn is ready to take you. I know you wish we could continue seeing each other every day forever. I wish it too. But it just can’t happen.”

“I know,” he said, but inside he felt himself still protest it. That even if he’d known for his entire life that your fellow Initiates couldn’t stay with you, that sooner or later they had to leave and fulfill their destiny, still there was something wrong with this.

But he did feel better when she said, “We don’t have to never see each other again, though, at least if I do get taken. We can try to meet up when I’m in the Temple. Once we’d both be Padawans, of course, we probably won’t see each other very often because we’ll both be away from the Temple a lot, but there will still be times, especially if we do end up with Masters Windu and Jinn, because they're good friends. At least as long as...” She drifted off.

They weren’t going to get killed. Anakin decided that right then and there. She especially wasn’t going to get killed, because even if she had to go away from him, she did not have to get killed, and she shouldn’t get killed, and he wouldn’t accept that ever happening. He’d always stop it somehow. He just needed to figure out how.

But he knew if he told her that she’d go talking about how he might not be able to stop it, so instead he said, “Well, at least you’re not really thinking you’re not going to get chosen now,” he said. “Because that would be stupid, because now even if Master Windu doesn’t, someone else will.”

“Yes,” said Padmé softly, and he felt yanked about two ways at once by the relief in her voice; it was good she no longer feared, but bad she had to be relieved.

“Good,” he said, and she looked at him in surprise, which made him feel a little bad, but never mind, he could just tell her: “Of course I want you to get your Master. No matter how bad it’ll be for me, of course I want you to get what you’ve wanted all your life. I just wish...” And then they both said nothing, because there wasn’t anything more to say.


	6. The Extra Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A field trip goes wrong.

Three more new Initiates joined them three weeks later, and a handful more also came up from the Crèche. But one of the worst parts of the attack had been the deaths of many of the youngest members of the Jedi Order, who had been unable to be evacuated and though the Masters who had fought in the Temple had done everything they could to protect them, in many cases they had failed to save them. Anakin watched Padmé go around and give special greetings to the former Crèchelings, as was typical for one of the older Initiates to typically do, and she expressed her concerns to Anakin that their experiences during the battle had taken a terrible toll on them, but Ellé remained the only new arrival that took up large parts of her time.

Ellé Anakin could get used to. She was a nice girl, not that strong, either physically or in the Force, but surprisingly smart, and she was determined to be as good as the rest of them in as many ways as possible. She might have been the hardest working Initiate in the Temple.

Much as he was never ever going to admit it to anyone, Anakin also became happier when just after Ellé had arrived with the other two, Master Windu went away with several other members of the Council, and he shortly after heard he’d be gone for a month. He would have liked it even more if it had made Padmé relax, though. Of course it didn’t. She was probably going to be thoroughly interrogated by him about her activities and improvements the moment he got back, and he knew she was thinking about that every moment of every day. He wondered if he’d instructed her to focus on the history of the Sith, because she seemed to be reading about that a lot even before they were all instructed to by Master Gallia.

She was able to guide him through his readings about the old wars and all the information they had on the current state of the Sith, and first warned him before he started reading about the latter that the source of their information had been his mother. She held him silently as for the first time he read about just what had happened to her, and where he himself might have come from, which he’d only had vague knowledge about before then. “You don’t have to let it shape you,” she said when he had stopped shaking. “None of us have any say in how we come about into existence. We make our choices after that, and we can choose to be whatever we want then.”

“I know,” he said. “But what if this Darth Sidious comes after me? What if he goes after my mom on Dantooine? And oh stars, how he must have hurt her...” It was actually pain for her, more than fear, that had made him shake, though he had felt lots of fear too.

“Do you want to try to find out how she’s doing on Dantooine?” she asked, which surprised him. He had the feeling he wasn’t really supposed to know, and that Master Windu would not be happy with her if she helped him. If he found out, anyway, but he didn’t know if she’d be capable of keeping it from him. But at his fervent _yes_ , she said, “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

But days passed, and she didn’t bring the subject up again. He didn’t know if she’d suddenly gotten afraid of helping, decided it was a bad idea anyway, or was just having trouble getting any information.

Meanwhile, it was getting on a month since Master Windu had left, which meant Anakin had to think about his coming back. But before then, some of the other Council members were starting to drive him and many of the other Initiates crazy. Master Yaddle it seemed was now completely recovered, and insisted they had to learn more about Ilum, including all the boring stuff about how all those crystals formed there, and about planets like Ossus and Kamparas and all the more boring parts of their history, involving civilizations that had existed on them for thousands of years but still weren’t there anymore now. Than there was Master Poof, who wanted them to do new exercises to increase their speed and hiding ability. Anakin was one of the best at the former but had trouble with the latter; the other Initiates always seemed able to find him. Octus told him once he was much easier to sense through the Force than everyone else. Padmé then told him that was because he was much stronger in the Force than they were, which he supposed was something he should be happy about, but it still was annoying.

There was one new set of lessons, however, that he really liked. It seemed that after years of keeping older Initiates cooped up in the Jedi Temple, the possibility of them being attacked and the Temple being half or even wholly destroyed had led the Council to decide they should know something of Coruscant. So every other week, usually under the guidance of Master Gallia, they went out, sometimes together and sometimes in two or three groups at a time, got on buses or large crates, and went around the neighborhood. Once they went very far down, and saw where Padmé whispered very poor people lived; that wasn’t a very nice place. Another time they took a longer trip than usual, and went all the way to the Senate Hall, where they met Chancellor Valorum, who shook all their hands and thanked them for dedicating their lives to protecting the Republic and the galaxy, and that he knew that peace and order would be in safe hands with them.

Their third trip out, they were told as they all crowded into the crate, Ellé keeping near Anakin and Padmé as she often did when all the Initiates went out together, was their biggest yet. “We will be going around the planet,” Master Gallia explained to them, “and you will learn how the power is maintained, how the water system is run, how the light and weather is controlled, and basically how the resources of this planet are economized to support a population much bigger than its resources would be able to maintain under most circumstances. It is not an easy thing to do, and some people might even disapprove of some of the things you will see demonstrated today. However, since the events of the universe have led to Coruscant having all the people that is does, they must be able to eat and breathe and live, and this is how that is made possible.”

“Why would anyone disapprove of that?” Anakin asked Padmé in a whisper, but she shushed him.

“Our first destination,” Master Gallia had continued, “is down at the lowest levels still considered populated, where the power relay stations are located. The main source of power on Coruscant is now through atomic fusion, although for much of the planet’s very long history it was atomic fission, which might not sound that different, but can be a lot more dangerous. A handful of accidents prior to the Ruusan Reformation have done great radiation damage to these low levels. Even now the power is actually generated nearly a mile below the stations, and for reasons of safety we will not be going down to see that.”

The crate was dropping while she spoke. Anakin felt it happen, a suddenly rush of movement combined with the pitch of his stomach. Also the air around him seemed to turn colder, which felt kind of weird, since there was plenty of heat flowing through the crate thanks to its heavy engines.

“Master Gallia,” asked Octus, “is it true the power relays are all run by mutants? Are we going to meet some of them?”

“No, Initiate,” she said, and she spoke harshly now. “The people who run the power relays are just like everybody else. It is true that early in Coruscant’s history the power workers were sometimes exposed to levels of radiation that did have certain effects on them, especially during accidents, but nowadays stringent measures are in place to keep them safe.”

“Is there something she’s not telling us?” they heard someone whisper behind them. Mirk Oggslayer, Anakin thought; only he had a voice soft enough to get away with it with the sharp-eared Master Gallia. But she was already going on, talking about how the power was conducted up to the relay stations and from there directed all around Coruscant. “On our way back,” she said, “we may even take a trip below the Temple, and you will see how it receives its share of the power."

“That must be very far down,” commented Xiaan Amersu, since they all know the Temple itself stretched down more levels than they’d descended before.

“It is,” agreed Master Gallia. In fact, the bottom of the Temple is closer to the relay stations than to the main floors.”

Just then the crate stopped, and she nodded. “We’re here. Just a moment.” Then she stepped outside.

As they heard her voice and the voice of someone else conversing outside, Anakin first felt something prickle at the back of his spine. A moment later Padmé must have felt it too, because she said, “Something’s not right.”

Another moment later they heard the second voice yell, and Master’s Gallia’s yell, “Get back!” The sound of her lightsaber humming was quickly followed by the sound of blaster bolts, then both sounds ceased, and there was a momentary pause before they heard Master Gallia’s voice again, sounding like she was further from their crate, demanding something of someone; one of the attackers which she had subdued, Anakin assumed.

“I think,” Padmé started, but a moment later something hit the crate that sent it rolling hard nearly onto its side. Shouts and frightened squeals filled the air as everyone was thrown against each other, though weirdly enough, Anakin didn’t feel too frightened.

“Initiate Naberrie!” Master Gallia could be heard calling from somewhere near the crate’s door. “Get everyone out of here!”

Padmé was trying to obey, of course, but the crate was still rocking so hard it was hard for her to get to the controls. And then it was hit again, and this time they felt heat coming through the walls from it, and Anakin heard someone yell, “Blaster fire!”

“We don’t know that,” Padmé yelled back, but with it said, Anakin was sure it had been that; there had been a faint high-pitched sound that had sounded kind of like a huge blaster, the kind one might find attached to a small fighter, and the way it had impacted was like getting hit by a bolt too. Also she didn’t completely keep out of her voice the kind of terror that left Anakin completely convinced something or other was definitely attacking them.

The crate rocked again before Padmé finally reached the controls, but when she typed in some commands she shook her head. “The navigation abilities have been damaged.”

“Doesn’t that mean someone has to pilot us by hand?” asked Tru Veld.

“It does,” said Padmé and she looked across the length of the crate. There were control panels on both sides of it, and Anakin suspected she had fought her way to the wrong side for manual piloting.

The crate was hit again, and this time there was no mistaking it, not with the way it shook and they felt the heat even through the shields. Anakin thought that might mean those shields were failing too; they probably had never been that strong anyway. He would later believe it was that thought, more than anything else, that drove him to do what he did next.

All the jostling and movement in the crate had left him fairly near the side with what he thought was the right control panel, and now he pushed his way past the few Initiates still in his way. It wasn’t that hard to; he wasn’t sure what prompted them to do it but they all moved out of his way. “Padmé, where’s the manual piloting?” he called.

“Knob at the bottom, I think!” she called back, and then hastily started pushing her way through; of course it would probably be better for her to manage this. But she couldn’t get through that quickly, and meanwhile Anakin found the knob almost as soon as he looked, and took hold of it.

It was nothing like it had been trying to pilot the ship he and Padmé had fled Coruscant in during the battle. Back then he had been all too aware he didn’t really know what he was doing, and that had made everything scary, especially with that situation, where it had felt so sure there were people trying to kill them. Now he had done it before, and the knob in his hands felt a lot more natural, and so did the way the crate responded to his moving it about. Also, as he managed to maneuver, and a shot that would’ve otherwise hit them directly grazed them instead, he became aware the Force was speaking to him, making him know what was about to happen in a split second’s time, and that was a really good thing, because he could use it maybe to help save them all.

He heard some sort of screen load up on the other side of the crate; Padmé’s doing, no doubt; she’d stopped trying to get to him in favor of helping from across the crate. He heard he call over to him, “Ani, take us down. Our best chance of escaping is to hide in the uninhabited levels. I’ll tell you when to move left and right. Drop us.”

He did; he felt them plummet. “Move forward,” she called to him with him already ready to do so; the Force was still helping him. She called out commands in quick succession: left, left again, right, back, down, backward, up. He was ready for all of them.

By the time he heard Padmé say, “Okay, I think we can keep going straight now,” and the feeling of danger had dropped so much Anakin was pretty sure they were at least safe for the moment, he was even enjoying it. He liked the feeling of power and control he had with the ship held under his hands, the speed with which they were flying through the deserted downlevels. He would’ve liked it even more had he been able to see outside, but even in his mind he could see structures and jagged pieces of metal sail past the crate.

He was even disappointed when Padmé said, “The radiation here is minimal and there’s a platform coming up. Slow down, Ani.” But he obeyed, and again when she said, “We’re right next to it. Move to the right, Ani.” After a couple of seconds of his doing so, she said, “And stop and settle down. Try to make it gentle.”

That was the only moment during the later part of the flight that Anakin hesitated, unsure how to pull at the controls to make it gentle. “Cut the antigrav,” Padmé advised him. “It’s up on the top of the panel, I think. That should do it.”

It did. Sort of; they hit the surface below very hard, hard enough that they all had trouble keeping their footing. But everyone was okay and they were safely down, and Anakin was pretty sure that was all that was important. And when Padmé said to him, “Well done, Ani. We could barely have asked for more from you,” he felt very light and bright.

They filtered out of the crate, Padmé taking the lead. Anakin’s first thought on stepping outside was it was really dark out, not much brighter than it was when they went lights-out in the dormitory. Not only had the sunlight stopped at least a mile above them, but the only illumination came from a mere three lights, two on the corners of the platform(there were two more that weren’t working), and one from a floating droid the likes of which Anakin had never seen before that was drifting around, occasionally making very soft and strange mechanical sounds. They were surrounded by air on three sides; on the fourth a walkway led off, then split into two directions. One, the wider one, went into a building with so big an entrance Anakin thought it had probably been used as a parking garage. The other went off into structures too far away to make out in the limited light.

“According to the crate computer,” said Padmé, “we’re in the lowest thousand levels before they stop keeping track; it can’t give me anything more accurate.”

“Are we near the planet surface then?” asked a fascinated Octus. “Will we see mutants?”

“No, Octus,” said Padmé; “there’s a lot of space below us they don’t divide into levels. Remember almost everybody lives above us. But these platforms are probably thousands or even tens of thousands of years old, older even than the Sith Wars. We’re standing on Republic history.” There was an excited murmur at the thought of this. “There’s probably a lot of decay around, though. Thankfully these platforms are usually made from the most durable and long-lasting compounds that existed back then, but we still have to be careful.”

“I heard one of the Masters say it’s dangerous to be down here,” said Donnie Briggs. “He said there are some people who are really poor, even poorer than we saw during our first trip out, but there are so many thugs and criminals down here that even those people who don’t want to make trouble will go around with cheap blasters and often shoot any strangers on sight, just in case. He said the CSF never come down here, and if they did they’d probably be killed.”

“There are dangers down here, yes,” Padmé agreed. “It might possibly become less dangerous to fly back upwards, so we will if that happens. But for now it's probably still safer not too.”

“Isn’t it something, though,” said Xiaan Amersu. “We never would have seen any of this. This looks like a really old-style docking platform. And horizontally speaking, we still aren’t far from the Temple, are we? So maybe this platform saw Master Odan-Urr land on it with Master Nadill and the Empress of Koros when he came to Coruscant to tell the Council of his horrific vision. Or maybe Krynda Draay depart Coruscant and the Jedi Order before the Mandalorian Wars.”

“Would that this platform could talk!” exclaimed someone else.

“Much history happens everywhere,” said Padmé. “Though you know, it might less likely famous people used this platform than ordinary people did. Think about it. Millions of people thousands of years ago likely stood where you are all standing now. Each of those people was a unique individual, remember, with lives not exactly like anyone else’s, which now, in a way, now intersect with yours, because you have this place in common. Maybe there were famous people too, maybe not. But I don’t think that’s as incredible as considering all the people together who beyond a doubt were here at some time or another, even if we can’t be entirely sure when.”

A similar thought occurred to Anakin then, and he said, “What about the pilots that landed their ships here? I wonder who they were. How many planets did you think they came from?”

“We’d probably have to know just when the platform was in use to know that, I think,” said Padmé. “Though most of them were probably flying vessels smaller than our crate, since the platform’s not very big.” It wasn’t; by now they had already spread out its entire length. “Since there’s only one way off it, in the direction of the Temple, I think, it was probably used by people coming there. Maybe not more important visitors, though; they probably arrived at the platforms attached to the Temple itself, but maybe a lot of the workers in the morning, especially if they lived in this area. There’s even a possibility it finds occasional use today, though the lights would probably be in better repair if it was used regularly, even this far down.”

“Do you think the people that came in here helped build the Temple?” asked Ellé. “I mean, I know the foundations might have been laid even before this platform was built, but there have been a lot of expansions, haven’t there?”

“There have,” said Padmé. “Especially after the Sith Wars. I wouldn’t be surprised if the garage over there might have even stored building material as was convenient.”

Anakin pictured it, sure the others were doing so too. He could see it all, the workers, all of the oldest species in the Republic, filing in for the day, lugging stones and bricks out of the garage, perhaps saying goodbye the family members who might have drove them. It was incredible to think about, all those generations over all those thousands of years and more, working to produce the proud structure that stood now.

But he was broken out of the vision by a sudden sense that something was amiss, a split second before Padmé said, “Wait, someone’s coming. From the longer walkway. Everyone get behind me.” They all scrambled to obey as Padmé took her lightsaber from her belt and held the humming, glimmering blue blade out before them all. Anakin found himself wishing the light was the sort that would fall on the surrounding spaces, but no such luck; they faced only the darkness.

Until finally out of it there emerged a woman clutching a very weak lantern, human or near-human it looked like, definitely not young, though he wasn’t sure how old she was, her hair dark grey and walking with a little bit of a stumble in her steps. She didn’t look or feel that threatening, though Padmé kept the lightsaber in place as she exclaimed, “Jedi! Why are you down here? I done nothing wrong, nor has anyone else down here!”

“We don’t think you have,” Padmé told her. “We were traveling to the power stations when someone attacked us, and we fled from them down here.”

“People still attacking you then?” The woman chuckled, and Anakin wanted to yell at her; how was the Jedi Order continually being attacked and so many people killed funny? Padmé put a firm but soothing hand on his shoulder. “Well, you probably shouldn’t be standing out here then. I don’t know if I can fit you all into my place, but I can at least try. I might even have enough for you all to eat, though don’t rely on that.”

Anakin wondered for a moment if it was a trap, but it really didn’t feel like that at all, and Padmé must have thought so too, because she deactivated her lightsaber and said, “Anything you can give us will be greatly appreciated, and I’ll see if you can get compensated later.”

They followed her back the way she had come, across a walkway that maybe was a little thin considering that for ten minutes they saw nothing around it but air. The group huddled close together, and Anakin kept himself as close to Padmé as possible, and noticed that while her lightsaber had returned to her belt, she kept her hand on it. They saw the first buildings, clearly abandoned and often falling apart, to the sides as their path started to ascend, surprisingly steeply, and their guide had to walk very slowly, until Anakin started to feel very impatient. But then it leveled out again, and lights began appearing in the distance.

“I’m one of exactly ten people who live here, a number which is probably about to drop, by the way,” said the woman. “We saw your crate go past us, and they thought I’d better go take a look. Weak old me, but they’re cowards, the lot of them. Don’t worry if they threaten you; they don’t got the guts to do anything.”

The lights were all coming from one building, apparently the only one inhabited. The woman rang the bell, and called out, “It’s me, boys; and I brought a bunch of stranded Jedi children.”

“Jedi?” A suspicious voice was followed by what sounded like the honk of a horn, and the door started to slide open, though it had to struggle to do so; it was very rusty, especially on the bottom. “I thought you’d know better, Tayer, than to bring those people in here. They’ll probably order us out because they think it’s for our own good. Never mind we don’t got anywhere else to live.”

“I promise you we won’t,” said Padmé.

“Why,” a very dirty face peered out. “You do look young, all of you.”

“I said they were children,” sighed Tayer. “Come on in.”

They were still coming in when suddenly the hallway was filled the sound a child’s screams of pain, and Padmé wasn’t the only one who stopped dead and turned in their direction. “Don’t mind that,” said Tayer. “That’s Mippi. Five years old and she’s dying of who knows what. Nothing any of us can do about it; we don’t got money for medicine.”

“But something should be done!” protested a horrified Padmé, and she was already headed in the direction of the screams, as if daring anyone to try to respond or stop her. Noone did, but Anakin followed her, and he wasn’t the only one.

Even after everything he had seen during and after the attack on the Temple and their flight through Ilum to Polsing, Anakin had never seen a scene that it _hurt_ to look at so much. Mippi was lying on the floor on her back, a skinny thing with a face swollen up beyond what even crying could do, eyes and cheeks bulging in such a way to show something was _wrong_. There was a woman bent over her, possibly her mother, but she was so withered and gaunt it was hard to tell her age. She was making feeble attempts to sooth her, her face so empty and despaired it seemed she was beyond tears. She looked up at them, visibly cringed, and tried to move Mippi out of their eyesight.

“Don’t do that, madam,” said Padmé. “Maybe I’ll be able to help.”

“Or Healers from the Temple,” suggested someone else. “Maybe they’ll help.”

“I don’t know if she’ll even live until they find us,” replied Padmé without even turning around to look at them. Frantically she moved her hands over the tiny body; the woman now not protesting, even watching as if she was torn between wanting to hope and being terrified. After a moment or so she stopped trying to explore with her hands, but just closed her eyes and went very still, and Anakin thought she was trying to learn more or quicker through the Force.

When she was done, she opened her eyes, looked up at the woman, and said, “I may or may not be able to save her right now. But even then she’ll have to be carefully nursed or she’ll probably be an invalid her entire life.”

And then Anakin had to ask, heedless of everyone around them, hoping Padmé would be willing to take just a moment to answer him. “Padmé, you aren’t going to do what you did on Polsing, are you?”

“Yes, I am, Ani,” she said calmly, and she was already drawing Mippi against her, preparing for it. “I’m not sure how far an extreme I’ll have to go to, but...”

“But no, you can’t!” he protested, running forward, stumbling, falling onto his knees by her. “You’ll die this time for sure!”

“It’s a worthy sacrifice, Ani, if it goes that far,” she said. “A good Jedi is always willing to give their life for someone else. You know that.”

He’d heard that, he thought, but he’d never really paid attention to it before, thought about what it might mean. “But she might still not live!” he pointed out. “And then you’d both be dead!”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she said, and briefly clasped his hand, but pulled away, even as the thought he might never feel that hand warm again made Anakin want to scream. “Oh, Ani, I hope someday you understand.”

But for now Anakin couldn’t understand at all. He gripped at her cloak, just sobbing, “No no no no no...”

Then behind him, Ellé said softly, “Anakin, didn’t you get her to stay alive last time?”

“I had Master Jinn there with me, he helped,” Anakin whimpered through his sobs. “I don’t think I can do it without him.”

“But someone will come find us,” said Ellé, “and maybe they’ll bring a Healer with them. Maybe you can still do it again.”

It was a little bit of hope, and Anakin tried to grasp onto it in his mind. But it was hard to think anything besides the fact that Padmé was giving her life right next to him, and he might have to spend the entire rest of his life without her, and he wasn’t sure he even could bear that, and he knew he really didn’t want to.

So he continued to lay there and cry; he could even bring himself to care that everybody could see and hear him doing so. It was even worse when at some point he found himself able to sense...well, he didn’t really know, just a lot of power, and he knew it had to be Padmé doing what she was doing.

He wasn’t sure if he emptied all his tears out first or he felt the Force recede around him first as Padmé finished. He was aware at some point of her slumping on top of him, and of another voice, probably the woman, gasping out something and then sobbing herself, though she sounded happy. It all seemed to happen together, flowing into the feeling of his being picked up and a voice he thought was Tayer saying, “She’ll have my bunk, though it’s not too soft, not like she should have, and if you think it’s good to keep the boy with her that’s no problem.”

He was so tired, in a way he felt even more tired than he ever had in his life before, even during the whole ordeal after the battle. Maybe even too tired to sleep, though that was weird. He hung so limp as he was carried somewhere he might as well have been dead himself. Then he was placed on top of Padmé, head against her bumpy chest, and there was that weird contrast again, because her body was still warm, but she felt _cold_ , though not as cold as she’d felt on Polsing, maybe. He forced himself to move his hand, bumping it all around, before it found hers and he wound his fingers around it.

He wondered if maybe he could figure out how to do what she did, and he could die for her. He’d be very happy to do that. For now, though, all he could manage was to grip that hand, and at least somehow he had gained the ability to think at Padmé the way Master Jinn had directed him too that day on Polsing without the Master’s guidance. _Hold on,_ he thought at her. _Please hold on. Please live._


	7. Visits From Masters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group returns to the Temple, and Anakin gets a lesson from an unexpected source.

At some point he did finally drift off, and he woke up in the same position, on top of Padmé, her body still warm, but a feeling of being _cold_ still clinging to her, him still holding onto her hand. They were covered by a blanket so thin and feeble he didn’t think it made him any less cold, and though with one foot slid off her body he could feel some kind of very stiff cushion under it, when he reached his other hand out by her arms it touched cold metal by her sleeve. He could hear some of the other Initiates in the room with them whispering to each other, and some louder voices down the hall, too far away for him to figure out who they all belonged to.

At least until he heard a voice he’d been secretly dreading hearing again all month ask something, and when he heard what was probably Tayer answering him, he knew he’d come here to see her. What was he doing back already anyway, Anakin wondered sulkily. He’d better not ask him to let go of her unless he had a Healer with him who could say he didn’t have to hold onto her anymore.

He opened his eyes and had just enough time to determine they were on one end of a poorly-lit room that was crowded with the other Initiates before a door opened at the other end, and Tayer led in Master Windu, followed by another Jedi whom Anakin didn’t recognize. She looked mostly human, though her lack of eyebrows was odd, and there was a serenity about her that made him really hope she was a Healer.

He especially thought she was when she was the one who approached the bunk he and Padmé lay on, while Master Windu stood a little bit back. “Initiate Skywalker?” she asked. “I am Master Ostrad. I understand you have a connection with Initiate Naberrie?”

“Yes, I do,” he said, and he said it defiantly, and while glaring out at Master Windu. Meanwhile Master Ostrad had taken Padmé’s other hand and knelt close, her cloak falling on Anakin and feeling much warmer than the blanket had.

After a moment she smiled, and said, “She didn’t go as far as she had to when saving you, Initiate. Give me a little bit of time here, and then she’ll be fine once we get her to the Temple.”

A couple of tears had to come out of him then, and he heard Master Windu sigh, probably in disapproval. But Anakin really didn’t care what Master Windu thought, not now that he knew Padmé was going to live. And Master Ostrad didn’t tell him to move, so he didn’t, though she didn’t ask him to do anything else, either, so he guessed she didn’t need his actual help saving Padmé. Instead he just lay there, listening to her soft murmuring, though on some level he wasn’t sure if that was her actual voice or something he was sensing through the Force, and felt Padmé slowly start to grow warm again.

He was vaguely aware of Master Windu at some point turning away to do other things; he heard him talking with Tayer, and he thought he heard a mention of Mippi at some point. Also half the Initiates wandered out, though the other half continued to sit around and mostly watch Master Ostrad working on Padmé. But eventually Master Windu came to the bunk, looked down at Anakin, and said, “Initiate Skywalker, come with me.” He sounded the way he had when he’d pulled Anakin aside to scold him on Polsing, which confused Anakin, because he was pretty certain he hadn’t done anything wrong this time.

They had a longer walk to be alone this time, because the hallway was crowded with not only Initiates, but also the neighbors, including Mippi and the woman with her. But that meant the room they lived in was empty, so Master Windu led Anakin in there. “What did I do?” he asked when the door was closed behind them.

“It’s not anything you did this time,” said Master Windu. “But I must express my concern, Initiate, about your friendship with Initiate Naberrie.”

“Her name is Padmé!” Anakin was shocked when he heard his own words, but he kept on going: “You’re planning to take her as a Padawan, right?”

“I am currently evaluating her for the purpose,” he said, at least not sounding any more angry. “But I hope, Initiate, that you are aware that even if I do not take her as a Padawan, someone must within the next year, and at that point you must be ready to let her go.”

“I know, she’s told me that already,” he said, not even trying to conceal his impatience. Somehow he didn’t really like it, this particular Master lecturing him about this.

“I am glad to hear that,” he said, which was just more annoying, even before he continued, “but I see no signs of you trying to lessen your level of attachment to her.”

“I was trying to help keep her alive! She was doing what she did on Polsing, and I had to help keep her alive then, too. Ask Master Jinn, he’ll tell you. I mean, I didn’t know whether my help was needed or not, but when I though it might be I had to try.”

To Anakin’s surprise, Master Windu seemed to stop and consider that. “Master Jinn did tell me about that, yes. If that’s true, then I suppose you have an excuse this time. But keep in mind what I’ve said. You can’t keep doing this, Initiate.”

Just then Ellé hurried out, yelling, “Anakin! Master Windu! Padmé's awake!”

Anakin would have cheered had Master Windu not been there, and as it was he couldn’t help smiling. His heart felt light even after the Master frowned and said, “Again, Initiate, heed my words.” But at least the lecturing was over; he followed Ellé back in, and Anakin, relieved that the conversation was over too, followed them.

Padmé was still limp on the bunk, but she was not only awake, but looking very alert as she talked to Tayer, who was telling her something that clearly made her very happy. Anakin wanted to run over to her and ask her what they were talking about, but Master Windu was still right there, and he had the feeling the Master wouldn’t let him. In fact, he alone went over, even Ellé stopping to talk to another one of the Initiates. And he talked softly to her, so Anakin couldn’t hear what he was saying. He was able to make out Padmé’s reponses, though, “Very good, Master,” and “Tayer said she’s looking good,” and, “I don’t know, sir, but she had some sort of disease, and I think I might have managed to cure her.”

“I’ll look at her,” he also heard Master Ostrad say, and he had to move so the Healer could exit the room. That got him even further away from Padmé, so he couldn’t hear what she said next. He could hear Master Windu’s tone in his response, though, which was at least gentler than he had expected, but still pretty commanding, and he saw Padmé nod her obedience. What had she agreed to? He had to suddenly hope it wasn’t not seeing him anymore.

The two continued to talk, and Anakin continued to not hear much, until finally he decided to go really see Mippi instead; he was curious to see how she was doing. When he stepped out into the corridor, she and her guardian were gone, presumably back to their room, and he found one of the men who lived in the complex talking with Master Gallia, which normally he’d be more interested in, except that he was pretty sure she was just getting an account of what had happened.

But to his surprise, before he could exit the corridor, Master Gallia called to him, “Initiate Skywalker, if you could come over here for a minute?”

Confused, he walked over to her, and she said, “Initiate, Master Roggs here tells me Padmé did what she did for you on Polsing for a sick child who is a resident of this complex, and that you urged her against it.”

“Yes,” he said, though he knew immediately he was in more trouble now. “I wasn’t sure if it would work,” he tried to argue.

From her stern look he knew that hadn’t helped. “Initiate, I am disappointed. I would have hoped that even if you knew nothing else, you would know that a good Jedi is always ready to lay his or her own life down in the hopes that someone else might live. Even if there is the chance that it doesn’t work they must try. Someday you yourself might face the same choice.”

“Of course I’d do it!” Anakin insisted, his voice getting loud, and he was surprised by how much he meant it. But he knew, just completely knew, that the problem hadn’t been the idea of sacrificing a Jedi’s life for another; it had been with sacrificing _Padmé’s._

Master Gallia looked surprised too, but then she shook her head. “Initiate Naberrie,” she said, “has both the right and the duty to make the same sacrifice when she is the one able to make it, especially when no one else is. The fact that you do not wish her to die is irrelevant.”

“It’s not just that,” he protested, frustrated. Master Gallia knew them all, knew Padmé, knew how good and valuable she was, and how they’d all be lost without her. He would’ve expected her to understand.

“It is, Initiate,” she told him, and then he didn’t know what to do, if she was calling him a liar. He remained silent, not even trying to not be angry, as she said, “I believe you were going to see young Mippi?” When he nodded, she said, “Keep in mind that what Initiate Naberrie did is the reason she is now healthy and hopes to live. Consider the good done there. And next time you might see her put her life in danger, don’t forget it.”

He supposed it might have shocked Master Gallia and probably Master Windu too, but Anakin had no problem doing that, at least when Padmé hadn’t actually died. Even though he had been unhappy when she had started it, he was happy it had all worked out.

When he came in, he found Mippi in the company of three other Initiates, and the four of them were showing off their ability to do backflips and other tricks. The Initiates could do things she couldn’t, of course, but she was surprisingly good, and she was even able to vault herself off of all of the apartment’s few pieces of furniture from one to the other, though this got her admonishments from her guardian about how little time ago she’d been too weak and sick to move. “Hello,” she said cheerfully to Anakin when she saw him, “can you do that?”

“Sure,” he said. “Just do it again so I can see it. If you can.” But she could, and did. Having gotten the pattern of what she did down, and taken note of what parts of what furniture pieces she was using for leverage, Anakin made his way across the room and crouched on top of the old chest where she had begun. He noticed as he did the metal it was made of was rusty, not to the point where it would break from any of their weights, maybe, but it made it harder to propel himself off of it. He could use the Force, of course, but he suddenly didn’t want to. She had done it without the Force, and it seemed kind of unfair to use something she couldn’t. He looked up at the shelf, about five feet away from the right angle. He should be able to do it.

He squatted down, let himself feel the Force, just as reassurance, without harnessing it, counted to five in his head, and sprung. He went fast, but not half as fast as he usually did, and as he struggled to propel himself through the air without the Force, the shelf, instead of getting closer, almost seemed to him to be getting further away.

He managed to grab it with his hands, when he had been hoping to get his feet onto it first, and scramble half his body up onto it, which Mippi had needed to do too, but she had done it much more easily. His next target was the stick-out vent in the wall that was probably supposed to control the climate but looked like it was broken. Mippi did have an advantage over him there, since her hands were so small she’d been able to stick them in, and swing herself off the vent that way. Anakin decided that justified him using the Force just a little there. But when didn’t use it when he jumped for the vent, he never reached it; without the Force he couldn’t stay up in the air long enough and crashed hard to the floor.

“Oh dear!” exclaimed the woman, and Mippi with her. But Anakin wasn’t really hurt; he scrambled to his feet, and said quickly, “I’m okay.”

“I think that’s enough from both of you, though,” said the woman. “I believe you’ll all be going back to the Temple very shortly. Come Mippi, let us go out and say goodbye.”

Anakin almost expected someone to lecture him on his competition with Mippi, because it was the sort of behavior that got Initiates lectures, and while he wasn’t sure how they’d find out about it, he was sure they would somehow. But nothing happened during the remaining half hour or so they stayed there or on the journey back, when all three adults were in close intense conversation with each other the whole time anyway. Nor did anyone show up that evening, when they reached the Temple and were all given food and rest, much more than usual.

 

####  **The Next Morning**

 

It was very, very early in the morning, however, when Anakin was woken up by a huge hand gently shaking him, and opened his eyes to the face of a Master. But it was not Master Windu, or even Master Gallia. It was Qui-Gon Jinn.

“Good morning, Initiate Skywalker,” he whispered, and the warmth Anakin could feel pouring out of him was almost tangible. Even though he wouldn’t have been happy with most people who weren’t Padmé waking him up this early, he found he couldn’t be mad at this man for it. Not even when he then whispered, “Would you like to come for a little bit of a walk with me?” Normally Anakin didn’t like when Masters asked him if he would like to do something, because it wasn’t like he had any choice in the matter. But here he didn’t even mind saying yes anyway.

With everyone else still asleep they couldn’t do any more talking in the dormitories, so Master Jinn led Anakin out into the corridor. They could’ve just stood and talked there, but he'd meant what he said about a walk. He kept going, at a slow pace so Anakin didn’t have to worry about losing his breath, as he started, “So, I understand you’re close friends with Initiate Naberrie.”

He had to be careful what he said to Master Jinn, he knew, because he really did want to become his Padawan. But he still couldn’t help insisting, “She’s such a wonderful person, and people are finally realizing it now, but for so long they didn’t, and how am I supposed to not care about her?”

“You aren’t,” said Master Jinn, and he smiled as if he hadn’t just told Anakin something so shocking. “I know what you’ve been told, and much of that is true. But of course you should care for someone like Padmé Naberrie. Your feelings for her have even saved her life at least once, and maybe twice. Even Master Windu can’t deny that, can he?”

“No,” grinned Anakin, “he can’t.”

Still, there was the _but_ in there, probably involving the same thing he'd been scolded about twice already. But when Master Jinn delivered it he shocked Anakin again: “But I am worried, for both of your sakes, about whether or not you respect her.”

"RESPECT HER?!” Anakin exploded, not even remembering he’d wanted not to talk to Master Jinn like this. “Of course I respect her! Why in the universe would you think I don’t?!”

“Think about your reaction when she tried to give her life for someone else’s during your trip to the downlevels. Consider it, Initiate; there was a suffering child, whom noone else but her could help. Had you been in that position, where you were the only one who could save her life, what would you have done?”

“Of course I would’ve done it,” said Anakin, same as he has to Master Gallia, only now confused. What did that have to do with respecting Padmé?

“Exactly,” said Master Jinn. “We are Jedi and that is what we do. All of us. Including Initiate Naberrie.”

“But she shouldn’t have had to,” Anakin still protested.

“Of course not,” and there Master Jinn went, agreeing with him again, only to say, “But the universe is not a place where things always are how they ought to be, and while we Jedi do everything we can to change that, sometimes there’s a child dying on the floor right next to you and it’s too late to make things fair; you have to settle for trying to make them better.”

“It shouldn’t have been her.” Anakin knew he was whining, but he didn’t care. Why couldn’t Master Jinn understand?

“But it was,” he still insisted. “And Padmé is a Jedi too, which means that when she has to die to save someone’s life, as Master Gallia told you, she has the right and the duty to do that. And you have to respect that fact. You can care for her, and want her to live all you like, but your desire for her to live doesn’t get to override her duty and her choice to do it. That it may not be fair stops mattering, if the circumstances that cause it to not be fair are beyond your control.”

It was all things Anakin couldn’t deny. He couldn’t even argue against any of it, really, not when it was all put like that. It made him want to cry, and that was bad, because he knew Master Jinn would scold him for that.

Except he seemed to see, but didn’t scold. Instead he stopped walking and knelt to be eye-level with Anakin, and gently put his hand on his head, so big it made Anakin feel like it was almost wrapping around him. “Being a Jedi is a hard life, Initiate Skywalker. This is merely the first of many demands it will make of you, that you be able to accept this truth, and you will be fortunate if it is the most painful of them.”

“But it is a painful one,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if it was really protest anymore or not.

“I know,” said Master Jinn, and he was looking at Anakin like he really did understand that, at least. “But I believe you are a strong, good boy, Initiate Skywalker. I don’t know if my apprentice has told you this, but I have long thought I would take you as my Padawan Learner, once Obi-Wan is knighted. I would not consider it if I did not think you worthy of being a Jedi.”

For a moment Anakin wanted to ask about Padawan Kenobi being upset by this, and especially to say he was sorry if he had messed things up between them. But he had the feeling he shouldn’t, and anyway Master Jinn was still looking so gently at him he didn’t want to say anything that might make him mad. So he just said, “Thank you, Master Jinn, sir. I know that doesn’t happen a lot.”

“Perhaps a little more often than you think,” was Master Jinn’s response, and he was still smiling, but there was something funny about the way he said it, as if it made him think of something sad. “Shall we go back to your dormitory?”

Of course the answer to that had to be yes, but strangely enough, Anakin felt disappointed in giving it. Master Jinn had been unlike every other Master he had ever met. He seemed to not only know all the things Anakin didn’t know, which of course they all did, but he seemed to understand the other things the other Masters didn’t, that he thought Master Windu would never understand, and he was kind, the way all Jedi were supposed to be, but most of the Masters weren’t, at least not to Anakin. It made him very glad Master Jinn would be his master. He wished Padmé could get as good a one, instead of stupid old Master Windu.

“When will I see you again?” he could help asking as they reached the dormitory.

“I don’t know,” said Master Jinn. “I know the Council is intending to send me and Padawan Kenobi on a mission related to the new threat; we have already been on one, and I expect we’ll probably be called in to be given the details sometime today. I don’t know how long it will take, or even if we’ll be able to come back to Coruscant when we’re done with it, instead of just getting sent straight to somewhere else from wherever we are when the mission is complete. Even if we do come back here, I can’t promise to come and see you. You must understand, Anakin, this has always been the way we do things in the Order, but it’s probably going to be all the more so now.”

“I know that,” said Anakin, because he’d heard some of his fellow Initiates talk about that; he and Padmé weren't the first who was marked by their future Master before they actually became a Padawan. “But will I at least see you again before I become your apprentice?”

“That date might not be as far away as you think,” said Master Jinn. “I think Padawan Kenobi should be ready for the Trials before the year is out, at the latest. Perhaps even sooner, given how much things have changed for all of us this past month. It is not impossible that I’ll be back for you before you’ll even have time to miss me, especially if they keep you busy here.”

“I could miss you,” said Anakin. “You’re very nice.”

“Thank you, Initiate Skywalker,” he smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Good day, Initiate Skywalker. May the Force be with you.”

Anakin wasn’t sure why it wouldn’t be a compliment, but Masters were always a little weird, so he just said, “May the Force be with you, too.”

Everyone was still asleep, even Padmé, but when Anakin saw the chronometer, he guessed she at least would probably be awake within an hour at most. Still he was very careful crawling back under the covers on his bunk.

He dozed off a little, maybe for half an hour or so, but he was pulled out of it when again he heard someone come in, someone too big to be any of the other Initiates walking through the dormitories. He heard rustling that he was dead certain was Padmé stirring, and then heard her whisper to herself, “Master Windu.”

He cracked one eye slightly open, enough to see she was right; Master Windu had come in. He watched as he lightly sprung to her feet, all paying fierce attention even before he addressed her. “Initiate Naberrie? I wish to discuss a few matters with you.” He didn’t talk nearly as quietly as Master Jinn had, Anakin thought. That was irresponsible of him; he could have easily woken anyone up.

At least he didn’t insist they have the talk in there; when she suggested they go out into the corridor he agreed, and Anakin nursed his relief and his anxiety both; he both didn’t want to hear what words he was saying to her, and wanted to know what demands he was making of her. But the only other thing he was going to hear was Master Windu saying, “This will not take long.”

Anakin would later wonder what the Master’s idea of “long” was. Unable to even doze when all he could think about was Padmé being out there with Master Windu, he ended up getting up, and a little bit of time before the others did too. When they did, he ended up telling them about Master Windu, because his fellow Initiates all wanted to know where she was. He was pleased that they all agreed with him he shouldn’t have woken her up so early. There was more than one moment, too, where the story of Master Jinn dropping in to talk with him was at the tip of his tongue, but somehow he found himself not wanting to talk about it. He wasn’t even sure why. He just wanted to keep it to himself, unless he maybe told Padmé, and he wasn’t sure he could do even that when they’d been talking about her.

Because of some new rules that had come into place two weeks before, they had to wait until she came back before they could go to the new Refectory, and Anakin’s stomach was growling by the time the two of them did return, when Master Windu announced he would be escorting them to breakfast and would afterwards tell them a few important things they needed to know. That did not make Anakin happy, but to his relief after they started the trek Padmé didn’t stay with him; instead she first fell in with Anakin, and then led them both over to Ellé, while Master Windu instead began talking with some other Initiates, wanting to give his attention to as many of them as easily done, maybe.

Still Anakin leaned in and whispered, soft as he could manage, “What did you two talk about?”

She shrugged. “Wanted to see how well I was recovering, mostly.” She was recovering very well this time; she still was on her feet and moving no problem. “Also wanted to know a bit more about what I was doing last month, since he really hadn’t had the opportunity to ask earlier.”

“When did he get back anyway?” asked Ellé. “I thought I heard he wasn’t back that morning before we went out with Master Gallia.”

“He didn’t say, exactly. But I think it was only a couple of hours before he came to the downlevels. Master Ostrad even said originally Master Yaddle was the one intending to come down with her, but she was called off on some urgent matter, and Master Windu volunteered to accompany her instead.”

Anakin knew Padmé was admiring him all the more for that. It made him despair inside a little. He suddenly didn’t want to hear any more.

Thankfully just then they arrived at the Refectory, and he said, “Smells good. Don’t think we’re having that doughy stuff again.”

“No,” agreed Padmé. “Smells like there’s eggs involved today. Though they also have baked something, maybe more than one thing.” This wasn’t the first time that month that Anakin had thought her senses were getting better. Despite the crowd of voices in the dorms she always seemed to hear what everyone was saying in the room she was in, and one night she’d shown the ability to see in the dark much better than him. She’d never shown any signs of these kind of things before the Temple had been attacked.

It turned out to be eggs scrambled white and buns, and the three of them sat together with Octus and Donnie and talked mostly about their lessons and how they were doing with their katas, and of course the big adventure they’d just had, though Anakin found he really didn’t want to talk about that much. Maybe he was feeling a little bit ashamed now, because he had to admit Qui-Gon was right; Padmé had the right to sacrifice herself, much as he hated it, and thought everybody else should too.

He thought of those days that felt much more than a month ago, when he and Padmé would finish and leave together, apart from everyone else. That couldn’t happen anymore, because since two weeks ago, when they were done, everyone went to stand near the door and wait for the others, where Padmé would spend her time say at least a word or two to everybody, and Anakin would either watch her or just stand about and wish they could go already, though sometimes he found it nice to talk with Ellé, or even someone else.

This morning, a little bit unusually, he didn’t have the time to do much of any of these options. Something about Master Windu being there must have made everyone eat fast, because they were soon all done and lining up and filing out. It happened so fast Anakin wasn’t able to get near Padmé in the line. Instead he tried to keep track of her head bobbing near the front. He knew she had to be staring very hard at Master Windu.

He did manage to find her again as they all crowded into the big room, and when Master Windu looked perturbed he simply glared at him. He wasn’t giving up her company, and there could be no good reason why he should, at least until he took Padmé as a Padawan. He ought to, if he cared that much. Besides, Master Windu had more important things to worry about, and he knew that too, because he clearly turned his attention away to look over the other Initiates as they bunched up together.

When everyone was settled he said, “What I am about to tell you will frighten you, and it will give you a lot to think about. I remind you all to remember what you have been taught, and to not let your thoughts or actions be ruled by fear, but to let your fear go as much as you can, and do not let it lead you to emotions still darker.”

A pause, during which Anakin told himself he wasn’t afraid, only impatient, and then he said, “We suspected already, even before the events that have recently transpired, that those who attacked the Temple a month ago would especially want to destroy you all, as you are the future of the Jedi Order. In fact, we nearly cancelled the trip because of it, though ultimately our knowledge of the situation was such that we did not at the time think then was when they would attack. Obviously we were mistaken, and like you, we have learned some hard lessons recently.”

“Are we not going to be going anywhere anymore?” asked Xiaan, not even trying to hide her dismay.

“Not necessarily,” he answered. “You probably will do so less, however, and under much stronger guard, and we will do everything we can to limit the amount of people who know where you are. Also, we are increasing your lessons on self-defense, as well as escaping and evading danger, which will serve you well even when you grow older. I myself will be seeing you every week for lessons when I am on Coruscant.

Finally, we are considering the possibility of moving all of you off Coruscant, to Ossus, or to another location. This would be a very dangerous journey to make, of course, and I will say I don’t think it will happen, but is something that might, and you must all prepare yourself for it, if it does happen.”

Just then the door opened, and Master Yaddle appeared. Master Windu bowed to her, saying, “I believe it is your turn to teach the Younglings this morning, Master Yaddle. I will be back this afternoon to give them the first of my own lessons for them.”

When he was gone, Master Yaddle took a look around, and said, “Disturbed, frightened, by what he has said?”

“Well...yeah,” said Tru Veld. “How can we not be?”

“A chance, this is, then, to learn how to control your fear,” she said. “Think of this, all of you. What good, do you think, does it do to be afraid right now?”

“Not much,” said Padmé, who was good at answering their instructors like that.

“But good, you must know, it will do if, instead, on what I have to teach you, you think?” A murmur from around the room acknowledged this. “Remember what already, we teach you. Let go of your fear.”

She was nice enough to even give them a few minutes to do so, and the crazy thing was, Anakin thought he could kind of feel it when the fear started to leak out of all of them and away into the Force. It sort of made the room feel a lot better, easier. He felt Padmé next to him especially, and her fear went away faster than everyone else’s, but of course she was better at it than they were. Really, Anakin didn’t know what Master Windu was waiting for.

That might have been part of why he actually didn’t have any fear to release, at least, not much more than he’d suffered through already. Though he thought that might have been easier to release than the irritation he instead felt, that Master Windu was going to be showing up as much as he was, and Anakin was going to have to be listening to and learning from him himself so often.


	8. Say Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Master Windu comes for Padmé.

Five months after their adventure on the downlevels, nothing more very big and exciting had happened in the universe of the Initiates. Nor in Anakin’s, because Padmé was still with them. Though Master Windu was showing up to talk to her nearly every week when he was in the Temple, completely separately from the lessons(though he talked to her then too), and even when he wasn’t, they had started exchanging messages.

Anakin wasn’t sure whether to be upset or not that they’d done so for nearly two months without him knowing about it. It had been kind of weird the way she’d done it, typing out short notes every morning and evening on the side console she’d managed to find near her bunk(or maybe Windu had arranged for her bunk to be near), although most of the time it was covered by a panel that blended into the wall. She did it usually even as she was talking to someone, and Anakin often right there, if maybe not directly paying attention. So she hadn’t really tried to conceal it, except the way she’d just sort of projected that he wasn’t supposed to ask questions about the console.

Maybe he should’ve figured it out on his own. But she was still in charge of the Initiates, after all. She could've just been reporting about them to other Masters. That was what he'd mostly thought she was doing. He hadn't found out otherwise until he’d woken up from yet another dream about his mother-not a nightmare, exactly, but not a happy dream either, and seen her leaning over the console looking upset, and he’d immediately bounded over and asked what was wrong, and seen the message, in which Master Windu had been writing about some other knight getting killed, before talking about her progress in “the meditation exercises I taught you last time.”

He was definitely upset that she didn’t like him to know too much about what they were talking about, getting difficult when he came over to the console and avoiding answering his questions. They’d never, ever kept anything from each other like that before the attack on the Temple. After that, of course, there’d been a few things that Padmé had been told that she’d been ordered not to tell the others, but obviously that was different, and would involve big important things about the Jedi Order in general, not the life of she herself. This was stuff that affected Padmé specifically. Maybe he could've even understood if that Master Windu had forbidden her to talk about it to him. But he actually asked her at one point if he had. and she said he hadn’t. Somehow, she decided on her own that there were important things about herself she didn’t want him to know about anymore. That really hurt.

Such as right now, when he was lying awake, and watching her type away, and he wanted so badly to go over there and see what she was saying. But he knew she’d get angry if he did, and he didn’t want to deal with that. Another thing he’d learned over the last six months was that there was nothing in the galaxy worse than when Padmé was upset with him. Except maybe feeling upset with her for shutting him out, but he wasn’t sure which one of those was worse.

She knew he was awake, he was sure of it. Even if she wasn’t looking over, but was just staring at that panel as her fingers moved below it, and it felt like she was generating a force-field with how rigid she was.

He could tell when she finished and sent her message; he watched her bend her head, and breathe in deep enough he could see her chest move. That didn’t surprise him, though he did wonder what Master Windu had just told her.

What did surprise him was when, instead of taking a round through the dormitories, as she often did in the wee hours of the morning, or even just going back to her bunk, she instead walked straight over to his. She stood over him for a long minute, while he, eyes open, just looked back, and wished he could still know what she was thinking the way he always had once.

Then she sat down, on the floor, which left them more or less at eye-level, and sort of leaned her head on the bunk so that they were really face to face. “You know,” she said. “It’s not because of who you are. Why I haven’t been showing you the messages, I mean.”

He believed her, but only because she’d never ever lied to him. “Than what is it because of?” he asked her.

“I don’t know, exactly.” She sighed. “It’s just I feel different now. I don’t even know why. But suddenly I don’t want _anyone_ to know everything about me. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Master Windu wouldn’t like that,” he pointed out.

“I know,” she said. “You know, I had a meeting with Master Billaba recently. She wanted to tell me that it wasn’t impossible to make Master Windu smile, though it’s really, really hard, and where he wants your focus to be when you’re fourteen, and where he wants it to be when you’re fifteen, and sixteen, and so on. Also the chores he got impatient when she failed to do them, so I think I’d do those without being asked first. But...” She drifted off, as if she didn’t want to tell him what she would’ve said next, which made him sad again.

But at least she didn’t stop him when he reached out a hand. In fact, she raised her own hand to take it, and she moved in closer, until her head was lying completely on the bunk, and the two of them were pretty close to snuggled up.

Then, her voice choked up, she whispered, “I’m going to miss you so much, Ani.”

“I’m going to miss you too,” he said, and he moved his own head, until their foreheads touched. He closed his eyes so he could focus on what he could feel there, both the physical warmth from her body and the essence of her presence, the sort of thing he could sense coming from her. She knew that he was doing that, and maybe that was part of the reason why she placed her hands on his back, not really hugging him, because they didn’t move any closer, but still holding him. “You’re getting stronger. You’re going to make an amazing Jedi.”

“So will you,” he was sure to say.

“But you’re going to be greater.” She said it very matter-of-factly. “You know that already. I don’t know if you need to be any Prophetic Chosen One or anything like that, the way Master Jinn and some of the other Masters think you're going to be, including I think Master Windu, by the way. But even if you’re not, and that’s not what you do, you’ll still do great things, things I might not be able to do.”

The thought of all that still scared Anakin a little, but he liked her words, her faith in him. He reached behind himself and took hold of one of her hands. “Friends forever?” he asked. “Even if we don’t see each other much, we can still think of each other, and remember each other, right?”

“Right,” she said, and squeezed.

They stayed that way for a few more minutes, then, saying nothing, because they didn’t need to say anymore. Then Padmé said, “Milo’s up,” and rose to go to where he was in the other room to wish him a good morning. That was a regular thing she did for the first risers of the day, more often recently, which he took as another sign she expected to soon be gone from them.

 

####  **That Afternoon**

 

It had been a regular morning, and after lunch, as scheduled, Master Jocasta Nu came in to teach them about history. She was still a new face to Anakin, one he had never seen before the attack on the Temple. Of course, when she had first come to them with the announcement that she was taking over the history lessons, Anakin had wanted nothing more than to talk with her about his mother, since she had been her Master. But so far Master Nu had told him not yet, saying there would be a time for that, but he needed to be older first. He worried that might not happen until someone else started teaching them history instead, or Master Jinn came back and took him away.

By now they’d learned most of what the Jedi Order knew about how the Sith had operated during the last thousand years, when everyone had thought they’d been wiped out. They’d also learned generally that there’d been a series of big wars with the Sith over 3500 years ago. But when they were all sat down that day, Master Nu said, “Today we are going to learn about the different Sith Wars. Can anyone tell me what the individual wars were and when they took place?”

Anakin wondered why she asked that; of course they all could. Different students listed them off for her, from the Great Sith War that had started it all in 32,457 BTYA, to the Sith Civil War, the Dark Wars and the three year decimation of the Order at the hands of the Sith Triumvirate before they had been vanquished in 32,504 BTYA. “Today,” she said when they had all been named, “we will focus in for the first time on the Dark Wars, and the Jedi Purge that happened during them.

Now, as you know, when the Dark Wars began, another war had just ended: the Jedi Civil War. The Jedi Order had more or less won that war, but our numbers had been decimated already; there were only a hundred knights left in the Order. Still, we initially did not worry, because we had broken the Sith Empire, their forces were all scattered, and we briefly thought they could do us no more harm.”

“But they didn’t stay hidden long that time, did they?” said Octus, who, like the rest of them, had quickly realized the similarity of that time period to their own.

“No,” said Master Nu. “But that was because they wouldn’t have to. Although the top two Sith commanders, Darths Revan and Malak, had both been taken out, and the latter was dead, the members of the Sith Triumvirate were able to keep track of us. And they saw our failure to unite, that the hundred Jedi did not hold any loyalty to each other or to the Order any longer. That made us easy prey.”

“Wasn’t it that the Republic didn’t want us, though?” asked Xiaan. “It was that the fights we’d been having with the Sith had resulted in lots of people being killed, and not just Jedi and Sith, but other people too, and since most of the worst of the Sith were fallen Jedi, especially when Darth Revan had been the hero on our side during the previous war, they were afraid we were all going to become bad guys and try to kill them all.”

Anakin didn’t think Master Nu had been happy about her talking about that; maybe she’d planned that part of the lesson for later. But for now she said, “Yes, another one of the problems was that so many Jedi had fallen. This was something that made it hard for the hundred survivors to unite, too, because it left them at least somewhat afraid of each other.”

Anakin had to look at Padmé then, who actually wasn’t sitting next to him; when everyone had crowded into the room she’d ended up a couple of people away. As long as she was alive, he thought, nobody ought not to trust her. Had none of those hundred Jedi left been like her? Or maybe there had been someone, but his or her fellow knights hadn’t realized it?

He wasn’t the only one looking around, he noticed. The two Initiates between himself and Padmé exchanged glances, and he saw other Initiates do so too. He also thought he saw Ellé looking at him.

Master Nu saw what they were doing, of course. “It may be hard for all of you here today to understand what it was like,” she said. “In fact, I don’t think very many people at all in the modern Jedi Order would find it easy to comprehend what those survivors had been through, and what they felt. Over the last thousand years we have been blessed with a united Order, for much of it with no shortage of knights available, and nothing that threatened our very existence. That creates its own difficulties for us now, however, because we aren’t as prepared to deal with something like these Sith attacks as we otherwise would have been.

The Dark Wars started before the Purge did, and not all of conflicts that happened in the galaxy at that time were even connected to either the Jedi or the Sith, and a lot of them were also caused by Sith turning on each other. These were usually not the highest-ranked Sith, however; these were the minions, who now felt no loyalty to their former leaders, but merely wanted to consolidate some power for themselves and having a space to rule during their own lifetimes.”

“That’s a sad thing, though, isn’t it?” said Padmé softly. “That the Sith don’t have to get along with each other at all to do the galaxy so much damage, but in fact can cause more woe when they don’t get along, but we Jedi are wiped out when we can’t unite.”

“That is the way of those who try to do good,” said Master Nu. “It’s harder to create something than to destroy something, and it is harder to do good and to do ill, and harder still to keep the more evil forces of the galaxy from undoing what good you did. The Jedi found out both during and after the Sith Wars how quickly their numbers could be wiped out, and how long and hard it was to rebuild them, especially when the evil forces that killed so many of them would not stay gone.”

“Master Nu,” cut in Dttus Niso. “How bad is the Order right now? How long will it take for us to rebuild, even if the Sith don’t attack again?”

The boy next to him hastily shushed him, but Master Nu did not make any objections, the way she always did when Anakin asked her his questions. Instead she thought about it for a couple of minutes, before saying, “We are certainly not as bad as they were after the Jedi Civil War; we have plenty more people left. But to get back to the numbers we were at before, even if we are not attacked again, will likely take decades.”

A murmur passed through the room; none of them had really realized that before. That they might all be old before things again became the way they were before the attack. That some of them might not even live long enough to see it.

“That probably further discouraged those hundred Jedi, didn’t it?” observed Jia’mosa. “That they couldn’t get the Order back to the way it was, not by themselves.”

“It might have,” said Master Nu. “Though even if it was the reason they despaired, that does not mean that we must despair, remember. Yes, the restoration of our numbers will take decades, but if we are willing to dedicate ourselves to preserving the Order and allowing it to grow back, the way Meetra Surik’s students did when the Sith Wars were at last over, then there is a good chance of it happening. Remember, we all came from their efforts to preserve the Order and rebuild it.

But those hundred Jedi,” she said, getting back on subject. “They did not realize this. And meanwhile, the Sith did all they could to scatter them around and lure them into traps. Although, as I said earlier, not all of the conflicts of the Dark Wars were caused by the Sith, many of them were, sometimes where it didn't look like they'd caused because they'd done so in secret. We are still not one hundred percent certain of how many fights they were involved in and how many they weren’t. We do know they were behind the blood extremist rebellion on Alderaan, the piratical raids on the outer worlds of the Corellian System, the continuous unrest on Duros, and other similar crises that kept our best knights distracted, left them unable to put in the effort to connect events when their colleagues started vanishing. It was done quickly as well. The first group of Jedi vanished while they were gathered on Dantooine early in 32,501 BTYA, and by the time the year was out over half of them were gone. Another problem was at the time Jedi were not keeping close track of each other, and it took that year for those on the Council to even hear that multiple groups of knights had vanished.

That would never happen today, of course; we have learned to keep much better track of each other, both through the Force and by technological means. Back then, you see, most Jedi could only keep track through the Force of those they had...I won’t go so far as to say attachments, though of course those weren’t forbidden back then, but a connection to, a familiarity with, and usually they had to like them as well. You can imagine how being limited in this way crippled them. It was when they started to rebuild the Order after the Dark Wars were over that they started to learn how to subliminate themselves past that, to make their primary sense of the Force and who was generating it every living thing around them, and automatically sense everybody, whether or not they even knew their names.”

“You make it sound as if the other way was bad,” said Anakin. When the attention of both her and the room turned on him, and she did not look too happy, he added, “I mean, obviously it’s good to be able to sense everybody. But does that really make it bad to be able to sense some people really strongly?”

“It has its uses,” Padmé added. “For a Master and a Padawan to keep track of each other when physically separated, for instance.”

“That ability does indeed have its place,” admitted Master Nu, though she sounded kind of dismissive of it even so. “But relying on it too much was a mistake the Order made once, and as a result when multiple foes sought its destruction, it was very lucky to survive. And it is good to learn from the mistakes of the past, and to not repeat them.”

“Is that why attachments are forbidden?” asked Tru Veld.

“That,” said Master Nu, “was a decision made for many reasons, when it was, after being debated for years beforehand, although by then thousands of years had passed since the end of the Sith Wars.”

Anakin hoped she didn’t talk too much more about that. Whenever anyone around him did, it made him aware of how many of them he knew disapproved of how close he and Padmé were. But what else could they have done? For so many years they’d really had nothing besides each other. And it felt wrong to him to not care for Padmé, and really want and worry about what was best for her. And of course there was how saved her life at least once and probably twice.

Those thoughts were still swarming about in the back of his head when towards the end of the lesson the doorchime rang, and Master Windu stepped in. All he said was, “If I may see Initiate Naberrie?”

Nobody said anything, not even in a whisper. They all knew Master Windu wouldn’t have been happy if they had. But they all knew. All eyes in the room turned onto Padmé, and Anakin was close enough to see how she was starting to tremble, though she rose readily enough and said, “Yes, Master Windu,” and followed him out.

And that was it, Anakin thought. It was possible he might never see her again. And he was just expected to sit here and continue to listen to Master Nu and act as if nothing had happened.

He didn’t know how he did it, last through those last ten minutes. Well, he kind of did it. He sat there, and he didn’t start crying, and he even heard parts of what Master Nu talked about, what battles had occurred at what times and things like that. But his mind kept drifting back, wondering where Padmé was at that moment, if she’d already arrived at her new Master’s quarters, or even if he’d maybe only picked her up right before going off on their first mission together, and they weren’t even on the planet anymore.

When it was finally over, and everyone rose and started talking or slowly moving to make their way back, Anakin, even though he knew it was disrespectful, leapt up and ran out of the room. He thought he heard Master Nu call after him, but he’d take whatever punishment later. Without stopping he ran back to the dorm.

When he burst in, the first thing he heard was the hum of a lightsaber blade. That almost made him run back, screaming they were being attacked, but he stopped himself, and instead snuck to the entrance of the room he and Padmé slept in, where he had heard the sound coming from.

It was Master Windu’s lightsaber, and he was just in time to see it slice through Padmé’s long, beautiful hair. It now hung limp in her hands; she had held it out to make it easier for him. All that was left on her head was enough around to just touch her shoulders, and a thin strip of it, still at its original length, by her ear.

Anakin forced himself to look at her face. She actually didn’t look overjoyed in exactly the way he would’ve thought, she was too calm for that. But he could still see the happiness that he could also feel radiating out of her. It was so strong he didn’t even have to force himself to feel happy for her. That happened on its own, even when his heart was breaking too.

But then, after first pulling the rest of her hair into the ponytail, Master Windu knelt very close to Padmé as she sat down on the nearest bunk, took the strip of hair between his fingers, and began to do her padawan braid. And even though he knew that was good, and to have him do it probably just made Padmé even happier, Anakin didn’t like the way her eyes changed. They’d been focused on her new Master already, of course, but now there was something new in them. It was kind of worshipful, which was bad enough, but there was also a keenness, a desperate eagerness, and some sort of wishing in them too. That last one was especially confusing. What in the galaxy could Padmé want now, when the only thing Anakin had ever seen her really want she finally had?

As the tips of his large fingers brushed her skin, he saw Padmé close her eyes, which was just weird; why should that make her blink and almost quail away as if she had been overwhelmed? But it did; Anakin could see by the time Master Windu withdrew she had grown short of breath. He wasn’t even sure she realized he was there before her new Master, who of course had noticed, turned to him and asked, without sounding too friendly, “Is the class out yet, Initiate?”

“It is,” said Anakin. “Only just now.” He had to get up his courage when he was looking Master Windu in the face, but he reminded himself of what he knew was right, no matter what anyone told him, and said, “Do you think, Master Windu, you and Padmé can stay here long enough for her to say goodbye to everybody? I mean, she’s really been involved in taking care of us all a lot.”

“I have been, Master,” said Padmé. “It would make them very happy.” But not only did she not actually ask him, but she spoke in a more soft and humble tone than he’d ever heard come out of her. And he was never, ever, ever going to like that.

But it worked; Master Windu’s frown softened, and he said, “All right,” just as they heard the door to the dormitory open, and multiple voices as the rest of the Initiates came back in. Ellé too must have guessed what was going on, because she came running in ahead of the rest. When the younger girl reached her Padmé pulled her up into a hug, and that made Anakin feel a little better, that she would still do that without asking permission from Master Windu. But he wondered if he’d make her in the future. Even now after a moment she looked up at him anxiously for a moment, though she then relaxed, apparently seeing something in his unchanging expression Anakin didn’t.

“Is is true?” Ellé whimpered. “That none of us are ever going to see you again?”

“Who told you that?” Padmé demanded. “That’s not necessarily true. It is true you might not, but there’s no reason we might not run into each other throughout all our lives, especially now, when the Order’s so much smaller. In fact, thanks to that, I think it’s more likely than not you will see me again, and multiple times, isn’t that right, Master?”

“It is,” said Master Windu. “Although it will probably be a number of years for you, Initiate Okrest, until you are taken as a Padawan.”

Ellé didn’t want to let go, but as the others came in Padmé gently pulled her arms off of her and stepped away. On their own accord they all came into the room, crowding it up until Master Windu said, “Out into the big room. We want to talk to all of you briefly.”

Out they went, and Anakin wanted to stay close to Padmé, not spend these final few minutes too far away from her. But he suddenly found himself with a new responsibility, when Ellé grabbed his hand, and looked at him in a way that clearly said _Without her you’re the closest thing I have to someone I feel safe around and I can rely on to take care of me no matter what._ That kind of put them in the same position, but he had to admit she might have depended on Padmé more than even he had. He wondered what she would do when Master Jinn came.

Learn to be responsible. Learn to accept that Padmé was going away and he had to be proper about it and not let his feelings stop him from doing what was right.

So he squeezed her hand back, and stayed by her, even if it meant he wasn’t accompanying Padmé as she and her new Master went to the far side of the room so they could face everyone.

It was Master Windu who spoke. “As many of you have no doubt guessed, I have, just now, taken Padmé Naberrie as my Padawan Learner. It is time for her to become an apprentice, and begin this new phase of her training to become a Jedi Knight.

I am aware that it will not be an easy transition for you to be without her, because she has been responsible for taking care of you all. However, rest assured you will be in good hands. Initiate Seirr?”

“Yes, sir?” Sticky Seirr, an older red-haired initiate Anakin had talked to but never known very well, stepped forward. When asked by Master Windu if he was the oldest after Padmé, he confirmed it. “I don’t know when I’m going to be taken as a Padawan, sir,” he added. “A couple of Masters have visited and talked to me.”

“Well, until you are, you must act in Padawan Naberrie’s place. For these first few days, we shall try to help you by sending whatever Padawans are available. She had told me she has already talked to you about this, and that you know and understand all your duties already.”

“I do, sir,” said Seirr, though he still looked pretty uncertain. Anakin wondered when that had happened, since he didn’t remember seeing it happen. But he wasn’t surprised she’d done it. Of course she’d thought of them losing her and prepared for it.

He also wondered if Seirr was capable of being as warm and loving to them all as Padmé was. Certainly he couldn’t be to Anakin himself what Padmé had been, though of course he didn’t expect that anyway.

“We Masters will also all be here as we always are,” said a new voice from the back; Master Nu had come in. “We may come to see you and stay a little longer than usual over the next week, although things are such now that we can’t promise anything.

Remember,” she continued, “this is going to be a normal part of your lives, especially now, when some of you may get taken as Padawans faster than usual. The older among you are going to say goodbye, and you’re going to have to let them go. The important thing you have to remember is we are all still together within the Jedi Order, playing our own parts, and there will always be someone to take care of you and give you what you need, until you grow up and are strong, and the only thing you need is to be able to fulfill the needs of others.”

Anakin saw how much better that made a lot of the other Initiates feel, including Ellé, who visibly relaxed. He found himself realizing then he might never be able to say to anybody that someone else doing all the things Padmé had done with him would never be the same. He felt that thought tighten within him and grow heavy, a weight he could never get rid of.

“May the Force be with you, Padmé,” said Octus, who was standing very near here, and he reached out and tentatively shook her hand. When Master Windu made no objection, the others started reaching out their hands too, and Padmé started moving through everyone.

Ellé had tears in her eyes when she reached the two of them. “Don’t cry,” Padmé said gently to her. “It’ll be all right. You’ll be all right. You know that.”

“And you know that too, Ani,” she added, turning to him. “You do know that.” He suspected she was only trying to make it sound like a statement instead of a question because the two Masters were there. Of course she was worried, and with sadness he found himself thinking she still would worry, no matter what he said now.

He tried his best, though, saying to her, “It’s okay. I’ll be okay. I promise.” He tried so hard to mean it, and he thought he kind of succeeded. He supposed when it came to getting up and going about things all day and managing and doing what he was supposed to do and being responsible, he really would be fine.

She was making her way out of the room while doing the handshakes, finishing up near the door. She ended up shaking hands with Seirr last, somehow, and she said something to him probably about taking good care of them, before stepping back through the door, and holding her hand up, until it closed, and she was gone.

Anakin found himself wandering off from the others, even Ellé, whom he fell away from somehow, back towards his bunk. He lay down on it, and just let himself think about everything, about Padmé, about the attack on the Temple and everything that had happened after it, about Master Jinn and Padawan Kenobi, about Ellé and the others, about his mother, about just how much had happened in the past six months, and, maybe most of all, just about how alone he felt then.

To his surprise, his session of laying there and being sad wasn’t ended by the need to go and eat lastmeal, or by Ellé coming to be in his company again, or even by one of the other Initiates wanting to talk to him or see how he was doing. Instead he looked up to see the unexpected entrance of Master Nu, who’d he thought had left. “Do you remember what I said?” she asked him. “About your mother?”

“Yes,” said Anakin dully. “You said you’d tell me about her when I’m older.”

“Well,” she said, “there are still a lot of things about her you’re not ready to know yet, but I think you’re close to ready to learn more than you already know. Especially about the life she lived before she was captured by the Sith.”

“I know she had a padawan who the Sith killed,” said Anakin. “I’ve read a little about him.”

“I’m afraid he I don’t know much about still,” she shrugged. “But I can tell you what she was like when she was young, what sort of person she was, and how she became that way. As I said, not tonight, but probably sometime within the next few months. So I’ll let you have that to look forward to.”

“Thank you, Master Nu,” Anakin said, and he really was grateful, because he really did want to know more about his mother. He supposed it was nice of her too to tell him that day, when she must have known he’d be sad about Padmé leaving. It made him think maybe she wasn’t so mean a person after all.


	9. The First Tale of Master Nu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin makes some new friends, and hears more about his mother.

To Anakin’s surprise, by the time Padmé had been gone two weeks, not only had he and Ellé gotten very close and he himself gotten used to mentoring her, but she wasn’t even his only particular friend anymore.

There were still some of the people who had used to point and whisper about him around, but their number had been steadily decreasing since the Sith attack, and those who hadn’t had changed how they treated him even more. Had done so already, but it was only with Padmé gone that he really started to notice. Word of the prophecy related to him was hardly news to all of them, but Anakin was starting to realize there was a difference in being related to a prophecy about destroying the Sith when not all the Initiates even entirely believed the beings who had attacked the Temple before most of the them were even old enough to remember had even really been Sith, and being related to that same prophecy when not only was the existence of the Sith confirmed, but they had only recently attacked, and were expected at some point to attack again. All the younger Initiates now looked at him like he was some sort of savior in the making, and even the older ones seemed more reluctant to boss him around.

Sometimes it made him miss Padmé even more, but at least she turned out not to be absolutely the only one who treated him normally. Ellé started to too, and she was eventually followed by another Initiate his own age: Tru Veld.

Anakin had known Tru, of course, and even before the attack, they’d sometimes shared study materials or practiced katas together. So it wasn’t that much of a surprise, or any new thing at all, when about a week after Padmé’s departure, when Ellé ended up paired off with Donnie Briggs during one of the sparring sessions they’d started having the last two months, Tru stepped in front of him and asked, “Want to face off for this one?”

He wasn’t the easiest opponent to deal with. Although his species didn’t look that different from humans, expect in skin color, he could do things with him arms and legs that made Anakin’s joints hurt to try. And for this session Master Yoda, though he wasn’t allowing them to do aerials, he was allowing them to move about, enough so that Tru kept bending around and attacking Anakin from unexpected angles. Two minutes in and Anakin was dizzy, frustrated, and all too aware that if was an actual fight he probably would be in about twenty pieces by now. It was especially hard when he hadn’t lost that many fights since they’d started.

And yet when Master Yoda called a stop, Tru stepped back and exclaimed, “Wow! You’re the hardest opponent I’ve had yet!”

“I am?” was all a shocked Anakin could get out.

“Yeah,” said Tru. “I think once we all know more you’ll probably win-I mean, Master Yoda’s told me I’m not going to be better than everyone else forever.”

Then Master Yoda called for them to change partners, and they didn’t get the chance to talk to each other again during the class. But Tru joined him again as they walked back to the dormitory, and said, “If Master Yoda ever does ask us to practice on our own time, would you practice with me? You’re the only one where I didn’t go crazy having to restrain myself. I mean, I know if won’t be much fun for you, but please? I’ll do something else for you in return if you want.”

_Be responsible,_ Anakin reminded himself. He was supposed to spend his life doing good for others. He hadn’t even needed Padmé to teach him that one. But it was still with her voice in his ear that said, “Okay, if I’m still here then.” Then, out of what impulse he wasn’t sure, he added, “You want to eat lastmeal together, maybe with Ellé?”

Which was how the three of them ended up not only eating together that evening, but spending nearly an hour afterwards just sitting together on Tru’s bunk, talking about nothing and everything. It was that night that Anakin learned that Tru had no memory of his family, but vague images of his homeworld, that two Masters has visited him but neither seemed that interested in taking him for at least a couple of years, and that both of his best friends among the Initiates had been killed during the Sith attack. From Anakin and Ellé he learned their own histories, though he almost seemed more awed by hers than his, maybe because he'd known the basics of his already.

But even if Tru had lost his two best friends, he had other friends, and as his friendship with Anakin grew, he found himself getting to know them better too. He spent more time with the other two Initiates who had arrived with Ellé, and he also got to know better a certain Darra Tel-Tanis, another Initiate their age, who like Padmé was a very kind person.

When their friendship really started, there was also Relll’o Tork. He was one of the older Initiates left, and was always up for showing the younger ones where to learn about various topics, although he sometimes looked haunted, especially if someone brought up anyone who had been killed in the attack. However, a month later, early in the morning, a hooded Master Anakin couldn’t tell anything about walked into their dormitories, woke Relll’o up, and went off with him. It was at breakfast that they had his having become a Padawan confirmed.

It made Tru sad, especially, that in his case they hadn’t been allowed to say goodbye. “I wanted to thank him,” he said to Anakin afterwards. “You owed him thanks too.”

“If we see him again ever,” Anakin shrugged.

Two more Initiates went in the following weeks, the first not much older than Anakin. Though the number of Initiates left did not stay shrunken for long; shortly after the second one was taken, the first group of newcomers from the crèche joined them, a group of eight younglings between three and four. It was then that they first learned how the attack had affected the crèche, how they’d taken all the crechelings to the downlevels, or at least all those who had survived the first bombardment. But some of them had been killed before they could be evacuated. Possibly a lot of them; when Master Yoda gave them this explanation, he didn’t give them exact numbers, but he looked and sounded very grief-stricken. That was strange to see for the Initiates, who had never seen him be anything but perfectly calm and composed.

The survivors showed the scars of it. Everyone had had nightmares after the attack, of course, and some even still had them occasionally, but the eight of them had them constantly. For the first few nights after their arrival, no one slept much, because one of them was always waking up screaming. Special Healers came in to work with each of them two hours a day, and a collection of ear stops found their way into the dormitory. Also, during the day, when there was an unexpected loud noise, or someone approach them unexpectedly, they’d sometimes jump. That, too, they were assured, the Healers were working with them on.

Darra wanted to help too. She often got Tru and especially Anakin to go with her when one of them was reported as having a particularly bad dream, especially because being in Anakin’s company made a lot of them feel better. Anakin supposed it made him happy, if he could help in that way. Their reactions to Darra herself ranged from Orion Canne, who never wanted to talk to her, to Flick Wozir, who would sob out to her every detail about her dreams she could remember, often thinking of new ones just as her account was nearly ended. That tried Anakin's patience a little. But it was from her that they all learned the names of many of those who had been killed, names that would’ve been forgotten otherwise, and they all tried to remember them instead.

On the day that Master Nu, after giving them another history lesson, escorted them to lastmeal, about four months after Padmé has left, Anakin, in contrast to the old days when he had eaten with only Padmé as a companion, ended up sitting with not only Ellé, Tru, and his three friends, but also two more younger Initiates and also Sticky Seirr. The last one looked hopefully at the elderly Master as she sat down next to Anakin, although that seemed kind of weird, since he had plenty of Masters looking at him by now. Although it didn’t matter much anyway, because by the way she looked at him, Anakin was pretty sure she had come for him, and he was finally going to learn more about his mother.

Obviously it wouldn’t be here, though. Instead, Anakin ate and smiled and tried not to let his impatience show, as she asked all of them in general how her studies were going. Sticky told her about Darra’s going around to the new arrivals when they had nightmares, which got the girl praised, but Master Nu’s main reaction seemed to be concern that they were still having them. “It’ll be a year soon,” she commented. “Jedi cannot linger over the past too much, and especially not over old pain. They must let go. And while it’s not a bad idea to remember the names of those killed, as you say you’ve been doing, you shouldn’t linger over thoughts of them. Those that pass into the Force cannot come back, and no one can do anything about that. It is the living whom we must think on, for them we can act for.”

“But how are they to stop?” asked Tru. “I’m sure they’re trying. I doubt any of them likes having such horrible dreams. And I know you Masters are trying everything, and so are the Healers.”

“I don’t know,” said Master Nu, every word slow. Anakin doubted she liked having to say that.

She escorted everyone back, then said, “Anakin, with me.” There were a few amazed murmurs that passed through the crowd; they must have thought she was taking him as an apprentice. He saw Ellé even look at him sadly, causing him to say quickly to her, “It’s all right.” He wished he could say more, but he didn’t want Master Nu disapproving of him, at least not until after she’d told him at least a little more about his mother. He was very relieved when she said, "Not what you think, Younglings. I'll bring him back."

She led him to one of the nearby rooms, where they’d often had lessons. The desks had mostly been folded up, and she sat down on the floor, and gestured for him to do the same. It felt kind of weird to see her do that; some of the Masters would, but she had never been one of them, always choosing to tower over them all instead, or at least sit all dignified in a proper chair. It was awkward, sitting with her, feeling closer to her, somehow, even though the physical length of space between them was no less than it had often been.

“When I had my first meeting with your mother, we sat like this,” said Master Nu. “She was a little older than you, but she was much shorter. When she was standing up and I was sitting down, I was still taller.”

“What was she like?” Anakin asked. He wasn’t sure if this was the story she was planning on telling him or not, but if it wasn’t he’d like to here about this and the story.

“Very inquisitive.” She must have seen his confusion at that second word, because she explained, “That means she asked a lot of questions. That was hardly surprising; I’d only done a handful of lessons with her, but I’d noticed her as someone who asked a lot of questions there too, someone who always wanted to know more. That was what had piqued my interest in her. I like a Padawan who wants to know more. I’m someone particularly suited to being the Master to such a Padawan as well, being the Director of the Archives and in charge of the library.

Which brings me to my story. As I assume you know, I finally officially took her as a Padawan when she was eight years old, though I had privately decided to some months prior.”

“Why’d you wait then?” Anakin blurted out. She’d said she liked questions, after all, and he really wanted to know about this. “Did she know you were planning to take her? You didn’t leave her to worry, did you?”

“Worry?” Master Nu looked stunned. Then she said, “Ah, you are thinking about Initiate Naberrie. Rest assured that had she been twelve, I would have not only told her, I would have taken her sooner. I waited because she was so young. There was less I could do for her until she was old enough to understand and receive it.” She didn’t sound upset at the question though.

“Indeed,” she continued, “before I even took her to our new quarters, I first took her to Archives. The Initiates had heard of the place, but she didn’t even know how to search for information there, so I showed her that. At the time Master Yoda had recently traveled to a planet called Ollon, and mentioned this to his students, and she was able to look that planet up and read about its history.

Shmi loved the Archives from the start. And we weren’t sent off planet that much during that first year, so almost every day she was there for at least an hour. I trained her further how to use them, making up lists of things I sent her to find out, so she would get practice in doing different kinds of searches and going through different kinds of databases. Sometimes I thought she might even succeed me one day as Archives Director...I suppose it’s still not impossible she someday might." Her voice turned a little more soft, but it was only for a moment before she resumed:

When she was nine, a certain Master Nino Sigmet started a lengthy research project into a war that took place on Malastare about a thousand years before the Dugs there had first contact with the Republic. Most visitors to the Archives usually only came in for a week or so at a time, so when Shmi noticed he was constantly there for much longer, naturally she became curious, and though politeness, and I think shyness, kept her from approaching him for a while, eventually he noticed her too, and they became friends. She even helped him do his research, and he told me when he was done that she probably saved him a week’s work, maybe longer.

Now, he had been doing this research because he was about to go to Malastare to mediate an internal dispute between the Dugs. They had specifically requested we do it, and that the Gran who came to Malastare around the time of the Ruusan Reformation and became the planet’s ruling class not be involved. About two weeks after he was done with his research he went off. Naturally Shmi was very interested is his progress. This was a long-term affair; he was on Malastare for nearly five months. But finally he had success, the dispute was solved, and we all thought it a matter settled and settled well.”

“But it wasn’t, was it?” asked Anakin, betraying his fascination with this story. He’d heard of Malastare, with Ellé saying it was a planet not that far from Naboo. He’d only heard vaguely of the Gran, though, and nothing of the Dugs. But to hear of his mother being involved, if only in this tiny way, with the fate of such planets…it dazzled him a little.

Master Nu sighed, then. “We thought it was for about a year. Perhaps we were blinding ourselves, at least a little. The agreement only lasted until those who were unhappy with it accused Master Sigmet of secretly consulting with the Gran, and steering things so that the agreement would suit what they wanted. There was no reason to believe the accusation true, but too many of the Dugs believed it anyway.”

“But why?” demanded Anakin. “Were they stupid?”

To his surprise, Master Nu paused, as if she wasn’t sure of the answer. Then she said, “You must understand, Initiate, not everyone has lived the life and had the upbringing you have. The Dugs are, I’m afraid to say, a race that have not been treated rightly for much of history. They, unlike the Gran, are native to Malastare, and it was their home when the Gran invaded. The Gran took their lands without having a right to it, but the Gran were powerful within the Republic, so with the forces of the Republic against them, the Dugs were unable to stop them.”

“Then why didn’t the Jedi do anything about it?” Anakin demanded, absolutely shocked to hear they would allow something like that.

Again the pause, though from the way the way she looked down, Anakin didn’t think it was because she wasn’t sure of why. “We couldn’t,” she said, and there was a bitterness now. “We must obey the dictates of the Republic and the rule of law, even when sometimes the rule of law is wrong. Violating that, even with good intentions, would keep us from being at all answerable to the people we are sworn to serve.”

“But,” Anakin protested, “aren’t we supposed to listen to the Force, and know what it right to do from that? And if we’re still doing what we know is best for people, how can that be wrong?”

“A good question,” she said, in a way that made Anakin know she wasn’t going to answer it, though. “And one that is debated within our Order, by the way, to this day. It is also one that I understand Master Qui-Gon Jinn, whom I believe has shown interest in taking you as a Padawan, happens to have very strong opinions about, and I am sure you will learn a lot from him about it. Indeed, I am not sure he would be pleased with me if I affected you too much with my own opinions. In any case, I must return to my point. That being that people who live lives where they are made miserable, or even threatened, by higher powers they can do nothing about, and kept in a state of relative ignorance about the universe outside their own immediate surroundings, which the Dugs also often are, will often suffer from paranoia, and that there had never been anyone they can trust makes it hard for them to trust a newcomer. So it was hard for them to trust Master Sigmet.

This was unfortunate enough, but things got worse. He went back to Malastare to try again, which seemed logical enough to do at the time, since no one understood their issues like he did, though in retrospect, perhaps we should’ve considered the consequences of them being as angry at him as they were. They kidnapped him.”

“How?” asked Anakin. “Surely he could’ve stopped them. How many Dugs would it have taken?”

“Actually,” she said, “from what I always understood, he didn’t put up much of a fight to stop them. He was hoping to still salvage negotiations, and feared if he harmed any of them it might be unsalvageable. Which he should be honored for, by the way. I’m sure Master Jinn will be very quick to tell you a good Jedi will always put even his or her safety aside if there is the hope of accomplishing enough good by it.” Anakin wasn’t sure about that one, but he didn’t argue.

“I’m afraid it all failed; in the end, we were lucky to get them to release him after half a year. He dealt as best he could with the captivity, but they had kept him underground and very isolated, and with few enough living things around that the Force was not very strong, and though Jedi will withstand blows that would break the common man, even they cannot come out of that kind of ordeal unaffected. When he returned, it was a few months before he was deemed fit to go out again. During that time Shmi continued to seek him out. I encouraged it at the time. I thought it good for her to have that experience, and really learn to emphasize with someone who had been hurt. The two of them ultimately remained friends, too, until he was killed in the first Sith attack, the one that happened while she was in captivity.

I didn’t realize it had caused a problem, either, for six whole years. Until then, whatever attachment Shmi felt to Master Sigmet had never affected her behavior in any way. I suppose he wanted to see to it that it did not, and did so. But then when she was fifteen we were sent to Malastare. At that time, it was the Gran who were having a dispute among themselves. But we still met plenty of Dugs, most of whom were servants of the people we were meeting with.

And I am sorry to say that during that first visit we paid to the planet, my Padawan behaved very badly to them. Those they served were not kind to them, barking their commands, treating badly those whose work or even whose speed they found fault with, often forcing them to work extra hours without extra pay or even denying them regular pay on very unreasonable grounds. I pointed all this out to Shmi, specifically telling her to treat them with compassion, as it was bad enough we could do nothing else for them. But unless I had literally just given her the reminder, she inevitably spoke to them with the same rudeness as their masters. I suppose I should consider it fortunate from a practical standpoint that this did not seem to influence the Gran’s opinion of her any, but even so I was thoroughly ashamed.”

There were a lot of questions Anakin wanted to ask, such as did the Gran not like it if Master Nu herself was nicer to the Dugs, and were they *all* behaving that badly to their servants? But since the story was supposed to be about his mother, and he didn’t like her being spoken of badly by her former Master, he asked, “Did she think any of them might have actually been involved in Master Sigmet’s imprisonment?”

“That ought not to even matter,” said Master Nu sharply. “And I told her that. Although as far as we could tell, none of them were, and it seemed unlikely also because these were Dugs that had lived among the Gran all their lives, while the Dugs Master Sigmet had negotiated with all lived on the other side of the planet. I told her that too. Surely you see, Initiate, that she was behaving in the absolute worst way, not only letting her attachment to her friend get the better of her, but taking her anger out at certain members of a race on other, innocent, members of that race.”

It did sound like a very bad thing for her to have done. It made him think, too, of what he had read about her doing while escaping captivity, though he still felt that was very different; she had been horrifically tortured herself, after all. Still, he could see where this story was going, and he didn’t like it at all.

And even though he didn’t say anything, Master Nu could still tell. “I know this is hard for you to hear about,” she said, more gently. “But it is a lesson any good Jedi must learn, sooner or later.

I hope it will make you feel better to hear there’s a happier ending to this story. When we got back to the Temple, you see, the first thing I did was take Shmi back to the Archives. I found for her every piece of information we had on the history of Malastare, and especially the plight of the Dugs, I could find. It took her two weeks to read it all. She did not shirk, however. She made no protests. Every free moment she had, she read. The only times she paused for anything other than a task to do or a meal to eat or to sleep was twice when she read about something particularly horrifying, and she stopped and cried then. But when she was done, I would say she knew more about the Dugs than anyone else in the galaxy, even me or Master Sigmet.

About a year later we were sent back to Malastare to continue on negotiations; there had been a snag in what we had worked out the first time. By then my greatest worry was that Shmi would be rude to the Gran instead of the Dugs, but she was mature enough not to engage in that kind of fallacy. The ones she instead offended were a handful of the worst of them who were upset by her kindness to their servants. She even stayed up two nights in a row with a Dug who suffered an injury while we were there. I was proud to be her Master then, Initiate.

And she went back there twice more by herself after she was knighted, before her capture by the Sith, and made levels of progress made by no other Jedi. After she was sent to Dantooine, we had high-level Dugs and even the Gran asking where she was, and expressing great concern when we told them she had been captured and tortured and would take years to recover-that was all we were able to tell them, of course.”

Silence fell, it seemed the story was over. Anakin had to admit he’d liked the ending, but the lesson was another matter. He tried to ask something neutral then, “Will we Initiates ever see the Archives?”

“It usually hasn’t been the custom,” said Master Nu. “But the customs are all changing now, so perhaps it is not impossible. However, it is usually the purveyance of a Padawan’s Master when they see and learn about that environment. I am sure Master Jinn will bring you early enough.”

“I wonder if she still reads,” he said, as they rose and headed out of the room. “On Dantooine, I mean.”

“I’m sure she does,” said Master Nu. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of her therapy. Though probably the things she reads now are the things she found most boring when she was my Padawan, as do most Padawans at that age, but what she now needs to find herself and her peace back.”

“I don’t know when I’ll come back to tell you another tale,” she said when they got back to the dormitory. “I would like you to think a little about the one I’ve just told. You don’t have to spend much time each day doing it, just a little bit, maybe, just after you wake up, or before you fall asleep.”

“I will,” said Anakin. He wasn’t sure he’d think about the lesson, which was what he thought she probably wanted him to think about, but he didn’t tell her that.

Meanwhile, that evening, he ended up telling the whole story over, because Tru and Ellé and all their other friends wanted to know what Master Nu had talked to him about, and when Anakin said she’d told him a story about his mother they wanted to hear it. He also had to explain to most of them where she was and how she had ended up there; only Ellé and Tru had known that already. That wasn’t easy to do, especially when during the story, three of Tru’s friends got up and left, and they were looking at Anakin the way they’d used to once upon a time, before the Sith attack had happened. He doubted they’d be the only ones with that reaction once his mother’s history was spread around.

But when everything had been told, Tru commented, “I’m with you on the problems on Malastare. We ought to do something to stop that kind of thing. And if the Senate stops us, that’s horrible of them, and I kind of think of us too. How could people want that kind of Senate?”

“I don’t know,” said Anakin. He thought of Chancellor Valorum, and what he had said to them. At the time, it had seemed to him to be a wonderful thing, but now he wasn’t so sure.

“Maybe we should ask more than one Master,” suggested Ellé. “Maybe next time Master Yoda comes to teach us, we should ask him. He would have to know why, right?”

“But would explain it to us?” pointed out one of Tru’s friends, an older girl named Sjolle. “Or would he just say something mysterious and weird, and expect us to figure everything out on our own?”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Octus Kon. He squatted until he was about Yoda’s height, and said, “Easy I don’t want to make this, Initiates. Round and round your thoughts must go. Explode, your heads must.”

That got them all laughing, a couple of people so hard they ended up sitting down on the floor, including Sjolle. She was still giggling, as were a number of others, when they heard the door to the dormitory open and someone else come in, and then a deep voice ask, “Excuse me, Initiate, but do you know where Initiate Sjolle is?”

As they heard the response telling the newcomer where she was, everyone looked at Sjolle, and instantly they all knew. It was clear from her reaction that she recognized the voice, and that she was very happy to hear it.

She was scrambling to her feet when a bearded human male knight Anakin had seen once or twice but didn’t know the name of came in. “Initiate Sjolle,” he said. “If you could come with me?”

Barely had she gotten her, “Yes, Master,” out than Tru had taken hold of her hands. When she looked at him, he said simply, “Goodbye, Sjolle. May the Force be with you.”

“And you, and all of you” she said, and as she turned and follower her new Master out, she let her hands spread out on both sides. Those within range reached out to touch them. When her fingers brushed Anakin’s, he thought he felt a little sweat on them.

It was strange. This was something they ought to be glad about, that another one of them had found her Master and was taking the next big step towards becoming a Jedi. And it wasn’t like with Padmé, where she’d been the one taking care of everybody, so she had been a loss to them all, not just those who were her immediate friends. But when Sjolle walked out, she took the cheer with her. For a minute or so after they heard the door close behind the duo, nobody said anything; they just sat there, thinking about her, and where she was going, and how they might never see her again.

Then Tru said, “Do you think maybe our own individual Masters will have answers for these questions? If they don’t, I don’t think anyone will have them.”

“Maybe Sjolle’s asking right now,” said Darra. “I think when I get my Master, I’m going to ask him or her on the first day.”

“Why wait until then?” asked Anakin. “I think I’m going to ask Master Jinn next time he comes here, whether he takes me as a Padawan then or not.”

“Wow,” said Flick Wozir. “You’re very brave.”

“Jedi should always be brave,” said Octus. “But you’re right, Flick.”

Everyone else agreed with it too, but Anakin supposed he was lucky, that he knew Master Jinn was almost certain to take him unless he really messed up, and he figured asking a few more questions wouldn’t stop him. He was even hoping his Master to be would like it.


	10. Much Beyond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin meets with Master Nu and Master Yoda, and the Council also meets.

The second story Master Nu told Anakin about his mother, a few weeks later, was about her knighting. First she told him a little bit, though she left out parts, about her trials, which she’d undergone at twenty-two, and come out of with her legs so damaged she’d been lucky not to lose them. She told Anakin of how she’d had to be knighted from her bed in the infirmary, where she’d stayed another month after that.

“They sent her off on her first mission earlier than I would’ve liked,” she said. “She was only walking normally for a couple of weeks when an assignment came up involving a group of immigrants, including several Dugs, on Denon, and she was sent with three other Jedi to help defuse tensions. I am pleased to say she and they did a very good job. They were there for about three months, and I won’t bore you with all the details, at least not today, but when they were done, not only where the immigrants and their neighbors getting along, but one of the immigrants had even gotten engaged to a local. Last I heard of that part of the planet and its inhabitants, they had become a much more integrated society, and a more prosperous one at that.

She managed to visit me afterwards, something she made an effort to do whenever she was in the Temple, although I’m afraid it became harder in the later years, especially after she took Trace as her Padawan Learner. And you may not believe it, Initiate, but the woman who met with me in the Water Garden, which had always been a favorite garden for both of us, was not at all the girl I’d said goodbye to when she’d joined the others to depart for Denon. She looked older, for one thing, but that was the least of it. I could sense the weight of experience she had gained, the new wisdom and confidence that came from her working on her own.

She talked differently too, and especially to me. Before, even just after her knighting, she was always deferential, and most of the time, when she expressed a thought of opinion, you could hear the pause, always allowing me to override her if I so wished. There was none of that anymore. She spoke assertively, especially one matters concerning the mission she had just been on, and even told me when she thought there was an area of the Archives that need to have more information added to it, which she would never have dared before.” Master Nu let out a dry chuckle then, one which made Anakin wonder if she’d been that happy to hear her former apprentice say such a thing to her then.

Still, he said, “But that’s good, right? I mean, it meant she could go on missions and do things on her own like she needed to.”

“Yes, Initiate,” she said. “Indeed, most of what I saw and heard from her that day was exactly what I had been hoping for. But of all the lessons she taught me while I was training her, because as you no doubt have been told, the Padawan is supposed to teach the Master as much as the Master teaches the Padawan, a surprisingly final one came to me that day. You see, Initiate, before that day I had always thought that even if there had been things she had taught to me, all that I taught to her was still what she would know all her life, and remain forever words for her to live by. But she had rejected some of it, formed her own opinions, some of which were even directly contradictory to mine. She did at least one thing I never would’ve done when I was on such missions, and it worked very well for her.”

“What did she-?” Anakin started to ask, but just then there was a knock on the classroom door, and they heard Master Yoda’s voice outside, calling, “Initiate Skywalker? Master Nu? Looking for you both, I have been. Speaker to Initiate Skywalker now, I will, alone. Later you must come-know where, already do you?”

“I do, and I think our story is over for today,” said Master Nu, getting to her feet, and any protest Anakin would have made he didn’t have time for; Masters were amazing at moving really quickly when they didn’t want you asking them something, or just wanted to get away real fast, and she was gone before he could fully get up after her.

Not that he could’ve really paid attention to her anyway. He had never known Master Yoda to meet with any Initiate alone. Did he want Anakin as his Padawan, maybe because of the prophecy?

“Come,” Master Yoda said, and beckoned, and together they walked out of the classroom he and Master Nu had been in, and out into the hall, the same way he and Master Jinn had that morning he’d last visited.

When the old Master didn’t say anything more, Anakin didn’t feel like waiting for whenever he felt like speaking. Although his, “What is it?” was louder and more impatient than he’d meant it to be. When Master Yoda stopped and stared at him with that “behave like that, you must?” look, he half-expected his shins to be whacked.

But the old Master only said, “Know much, you do, about your mother?”

“Only what I’ve read and been told,” he said. “Though that’s a lot now, at least about her history.”

“Know you, how she is now?”

“No,” he said. “Not really. Why, is something wrong?” His anxiety rose when Master Yoda didn’t answer right away.

But then he said, “Wrong? No, not wrong. Not right, not yet, but not wrong.” That sounded a bit like a riddle, which Anakin was used to from Master Yoda.

“You’re not going to tell me more than that, are you?”

“Today, no. Tomorrow…maybe. On you, all will depend.”

“On me?” Anakin asked, confused. “Why not her? What if she has a big change or something?”

“Big, her changes are not. Slow and long they are. And you, change more, and faster, you must.”

“Am I doing something wrong?” asked Anakin. If that was what this was about, he wished he’d just said it to him.

“No, nothing wrong. Careful, you must be, you and Master Jinn both, but no, nothing wrong, not yet.”

They took a few more steps, and then Anakin asked, “Is it going to be different for me, because of the prophecy?”

“Know all about that, you do, then?” Master Yoda asked, since certainly no one official had told Anakin, but he didn’t sound surprised.

“Yeah,” he said. “Unless I’ve heard wrong. But the story is that I’m supposed to destroy the Sith.”

“A prophecy that about you, may be. Or misread, may be. Know, we can not. And even if we knew it to be true, worry about it, you should not. Enough to worry about, you will have. If meant to be, things are, then happen, they will.”

That made sense, and they fell silent then, until they came to the dormitories. It turned out Ellé had been waiting for Anakin, and when they came in, she came forward, obviously intending to run up and hug him, only to stop when she saw Master Yoda. Anakin promptly walked forward and hugged her.

“An announcement, I have for you all,” said Master Yoda, and his voice carried, so Anakin was sure they could hear him in the other rooms too, even before the other Initiates starting flowing in. “It has been decided that new kinds of short trips, you will all take, within the Temple.”

“You mean we’re going to see places like the Archives?” someone asked.

“The Archives, the gardens, other places,” said Master Yoda. “Exactly where, we have not yet decided.”

“Can we go to the Water Garden?” asked Anakin, remembering what Master Nu had said about it.

“The Water Garden, a likely choice will be,” said Master Yoda, but he was scrutinizing Anakin very carefully as he said it, which made him think he probably wouldn’t like his reason for wanting to go there. “First trip, maybe. And now it is time to eat.”

So he ended up escorting them himself that night, and spent most of the rest of the time there talking with the other Initiates; Anakin didn’t get the chance to talk to him again. Instead, he saw with Ellé and Tru and some others and repeated Master Nu’s new story. He found himself leaving out that they’d met in the Water Garden.

 

####  **Later That Night**

 

Sharing lastmeal with the Younglings had made Yoda feel better; he always did after spending enough time with them. Although he still felt the grief for how many of them had so recently had their lives cut short by the Sith. It had been hundreds of years since he had last seen such a loss at the Temple.

He wondered if he would repeat the two suggested trip locations to the small coterie of top Masters he went on his way to meet with in the nearly completed new Council chamber. Qui-Gon, he was sure, would be put in favor of either place by hearing about this, while Master Windu might then turn against them both. It might be better to keep it to himself.

But while that subject was to be discussed, it was only one of a handful of less important items on their agenda to come after they’d dealt with the actual reason for their meeting.

He’d lingered with the Initiates longer than he thought. Not only was it fully dark when he got to the top of the tower-the only one now, and not planned to be as tall as the original central spire, but the view wasn’t that much different from what it had been-but he was the last to arrive. Dooku, Qui-Gon, and Master Windu were talking together in a corner. Masters Gallia and Rancisis were both asking Master Nu questions. And Master Tholme was getting some meditation in, kneeled by the window, eyes opened, but not really looking at what was in front of him.

He waited a minute, letting Master Nu finish talking, before tapping his cane against the floor, and the others too fell silent, and Tholme rose to his feet. There were no seats in the chamber yet, the old ones having taken too much damage in the attack and their replacements not yet acquired, but when he sat on the floor, the others came into a circle and did so too.

“Here, I have called the seven of you,” he said, “because certain voices, for this subject, I wanted, before the rest of the Council hears it tomorrow. Know what has happened, Master Nu has not, so, Masters Windu, Tholme?”

Master Windu started the story, “The two of us and my Padawan Learner were on a mission to Cirrios, on the Outer Rim. It was dual-purpose. We were officially there to aid in a treaty that would end a war that had gone on for nearly two decades, but there had also been assassination attempts on several figures on both sides that they wanted us to stop. They turned out to be by a separate set of entities than the Sith, the typical kind of figures who would rather the war go on than they make peace with their longtime enemies, and there is no reason right now to believe they and their acts were in any way connected to them. We found them out four days after our arrival, and their being caught, and including one high-ranked official who had already been hindering talks openly, ultimately resulted in things speeding up. Four weeks later, when the attack happened, we were rapidly closing in on the final treaty, which despite the delay the attack caused has now been signed; that took another two weeks, which kept us from coming back here until yesterday.”

Tholme continued, “It was thus about three weeks ago we were having a typical day of negotiations, at our normal building, which in width is comparable to the Senate building on its bottom floor, with sixteen higher floors built pyramid-style. There were extensive gardens around as well, with greenhouses and other buildings. At about 1730 by the capitol’s local time, with the sun nearly set, that there was a report of an intruder on the grounds. At that point in time the three of us were with most of the top officials on the twelfth floor. Master Windu and Padawan Naberrie stayed with them while I went to investigate. We were especially alarmed because the intruder was spotted nowhere near any of the gates, and we are still unsure how he got in without being seen. He had been spotted by a local minding a nearby greenhouse. When I went to interview the man I found him dead, unmistakably killed by a lightsaber. At this point I contacted Master Windu to tell him this.”

“When I, Master Jinn, and Padawan Kenobi were on Polsing with the Initiates,” said Master Windu, “the three of us, my future Padawan, and another Initiate were attacked by a Zabrak Sith Lord, who announced an intention to take revenge on the five of us specifically before fleeing. So immediately we were all concerned it might be this Sith, and he might be trying to make good on his promise. Master Tholme continued to track him…”

“He wasn’t making any serious attempt to cover up his tracks,” said Tholme, which was not the way Yoda would have seen it, but Tholme was sometimes too good a tracker to realize not everybody could match him in hiding their tracks. “But he was going very fast. We think he studied the building very closely beforehand, especially since the owner has since discovered the module where he stored the blueprints was hacked into. So he knew what features and decorations on the outside walls were easiest for him to climb. I believe that he mistakenly thought the negotiations were happening on the tenth floor, for which we were very lucky. That was the floor he broke into, and killed two people before pinning a third and demanding to know where Master Windu and Padawan Naberrie were. Out of fear of being killed, that person told him we were on the twelfth floor.

But by then he couldn’t go back out; the building was equipped with guard devices that, when the right alarm was raised, which it was when he broke in, would trigger the launch of hover droids to surround the place, while summoning sentient guards as well, and already there were too many outside for even a Jedi or Sith to easily fight his way through. He chose instead to try to get to us through a series of stepladders that were part of an emergency evacuation system and ran between the basement and the roof.”

“I’m afraid he killed a number of civilians who were trying to evacuate,” said Master Windu. “Padawan Naberrie and I found this out when we went looking for him on the building’s heat-scan monitoring. Naturally we went to stop him. Since we believed him after the two of us specifically, we managed to be present when he emerged on our floor. He was indeed the same Zabrak Sith Lord. We lured him out of the building and onto the bigger hover droids. The planetary authorities, thankfully, went along with our plans, and allowed us to battle him until we were over a deserted, bombed out area, and Master Tholme was able to join us, at which point they were able to surround him to the point where he could not win. Unfortunately in the process my Padawan was injured, but she held up very well, and just before the surrounding we were able to evacuate her to a nearby medical facility. The Healers expect another week or so should see her fully recovered.”

“Even more unfortunately,” said Master Tholme, “while he was kept from killing his targets, he was able to escape again, killing quite a few more people in the process. And we still know relatively little about him, except that he has developed a fixation on one group of five of us.”

“There are always two Sith,” noted Master Nu, sparing Yoda the need to. “A Master, and an Apprentice. Such an irrational focus would make me think this Zabrak more likely the latter, and of course Shmi described the newly anointed Sith Master she parted ways with as human.”

“Do you think it would possible to capture him, then?” asked Master Gallia. “Try to get the information on who and where his Master is out of him?”

Yoda shook his head. “Possible to get such information, it is not. Give it, he never will.” It was an innocent question, asked by one of the more knowledgeable Masters of the Order, which only emphasized how little they knew about these dark beings they had for a thousand years been spared the menace of.

“Are you sure?” asked Master Nu. “I know the Apprentice is always planning to eventually kill the Master, later if not sooner. If we could figure out a way to hurry that process and then kill the Apprentice before he can take on one of his own…”

“A good idea,” said Master Dooku, “but can anyone think of a plan to do this?”

That, thought Yoda, at the very least would take many days of thinking on. “A difficult trick, that would be to play,” he said. “Keep it in mind, we could, but rely on doing it, we cannot. Know, we do not, whether this Apprentice even has any intention of killing his Master within the next few years.”

“It’s not a rogue Zabrak Sith Apprentice that worries me,” said Master Rancisis. “It is what you also say, Master Nu, that another common habit among the Sith, when they make their move, is to attempt to insinuate themselves in with the strongest ruling power available, and become the one pulling at the cords from behind the scenes if they can. And when it has been years, now, since we knew they were back, and they have almost certainly been planning this for much longer, the Master may be within Supreme Chancellor Valorum’s circle already, and it will be difficult to try to find him or her there without offending at least the Chancellor and probably the Senate at well.”

“There are ways we can still try,” suggested Tholme. “Perhaps we might try to send someone in undercover without telling anybody. They’d have to make sure they were never found out, of course.”

“That is a dangerous course indeed,” said Master Gallia. “We ought to be certain we have no better choice before we do that.”

“And who would we send?” asked Qui-Gon. “Do you think your old Padawan is up to the task, Master Tholme?”

“I do, in fact,” said Tholme. “We can go over multiple candidates, but he is one knight I would absolutely trust to get the job done. There would be a problem in that he has an apprentice of his own now, but if we think the need is so great we would risk this in the first place… and of course we may do this years from now, after she might be knighted anyway.”

“Make these suggestions tomorrow, we will,” said Yoda. “But deal with this Zabrak Sith, we also must.”

“He’ll keep on coming after us, I’m sure,” said Qui-Gon. “And I suppose I should say this now: I was planning tomorrow on submitting that my Padawan take the Trials. I am aware that due to his being taken as an apprentice so late, it has continually be recommended he wait at least a couple more years, but circumstances have changed since then, and I believe what he has been through along with the rest of us alone would make him ready earlier than anticipated.”

This wasn’t really that surprising; Qui-Gon had already been dropping hints to Yoda about it, and even encouraging him to offer opinions of where Obi-Wan Kenobi currently stood. So it was with much thought given into it already, when he said, “Support this, I may, though talk to him first, I would like.”

“I’ll bring him with me,” said Qui-Gon. “The Council can ask him whatever they want.”

“And if they approve, and he passes and is knighted,” said Master Nu, “that means you will take Initiate Skywalker as your next Padawan.”

“You have been meeting with the boy, have you not, Jocasta?” said Dooku. “Do you have any reservations as to him?”

“None, really,” said Master Nu. “Except of course that once he is no longer in the Initiates' Dormitory, but accompanying you out of the Temple and on missions, we will have to worry about his safety as well, and when he still only eight, am I right?”

“I would not worry too much about any Padawan Learner of Master Qui-Gon’s,” said Master Gallia with a smile. “You will not let much harm come to him, will you, Master?”

“I shall endeavor not too, certainly,” replied Qui-Gon with a smile. “Obviously this Sith may think the two of us an easier target than myself and Obi-Wan has been-and that would explain why he went after you and your Padawan rather than us, Master Windu-but sooner or later Initiate Skywalker must become a Padawan and take this risk. With proper preparation, we can make this risk minimal.”

“I suppose,” said Master Dooku, “you will object to any proposal of setting a trap for the Sith Lord with the boy as bait, even if he is in fact destined to destroy the Sith.”

“At his current age, certainly, Master,” said Qui-Gon. “When he is older, and if he is amenable to the possibility, I may reconsider, and that he has some fate against the Sith, I have no doubt.”

“Rush into such a plan,” said Yoda, “we need not.”

“I hope not,” growled Master Windu, who sounded like he was worried about all the damage the Sith would do while they waited. But surely even he could see that young Skywalker simply would not be ready for such a thing for at least a few years, he had his own Padawan's safety to worry about as well when she was still only twelve, and it was not a loud protest.

“For now," Yoda summed up, "On our guard, we will be, and the five of us threatened especially will be. Speak all this to the Council tomorrow, we will?” The others agreed, and Yoda did not think the rest of the Council would disagree the next day either.

Still, he feared, it would be sooner rather than later, and Anakin Skywalker would be young yet, when he faced the Sith, and even if he was prophesized to destroy them, he did not believe he would do so that quickly.

 

####  **The Next Morning**

 

Anakin woke up to find Ellé, looking like she was long awake, hovering over him, hands on his bunk. He opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing there, but she put her finger to her lips, and then her other hand to her ear, and gestured for him to listen.

He listened. There were footsteps and voices just outside the dormitory.

Ellé stepped away, Anakin slid out of the bunk, and on tiptoe they snuck out into the main room, where no one slept. They were standing there when the door slid open. It was Knight Kolg, a young knight who'd been helping out recently, and with him were two new boys and two new girls. Three of them were obviously from the Creche, but one of the boys was dressed in a weird outfit of purple that made Anakin thing he had only just arrived at the Temple.

“Initiates Skywalker, Okrest,” Knight Kolg spoke quietly. “These are four new Initiates. Their names are Minne Dobar, Bark Vlose, Re-tea Sull-up-ewi, and Noa Antilles.” Each nodded as their name was spoken. Bark was the one in purple. He appeared to be of a near-Human species; he looked human except for grey skin. Re-Tea’s species Anakin didn’t recognize. The other two were human.

The other five kids were all now looking at him as if expecting him to talk. Well, he was older than all of them, so maybe he should. “Welcome to the Initiates Dormitory,” he said. “We’ve been here since…” then he wondered if he should mention the Sith attack, because they probably had bad memories of it, the way the last set of Crechelings that had come to them did, “…a number of months ago, and it’s a nice place, once you get used to it being so crowded. I think the oldest Initiate left now is still Sticky Seirr, and he’ll be willing to talk to you and tell you everything, unless the knight who’s probably going to become his Master comes in and takes him away this morning. Ask the group of Crechelings that came in just before you. Everyone’s asleep right now, but I’m sure they’ll wake up soon. Unless you were planning to wake them up?” he asked Knight Kolg.

“No,” she said, “not yet. First we’re going to talk to the four of you,” she addressed the new Initiates there. “I’ll explain more about what you are to do now. You two,” she nodded to Anakin and Ellé, "can make contributions if there’s anything you think of that you think that’s important and I forget. I expect…”

But then he suddenly trailed off and looked over, and then saw that Octus had woken up, and come and joined them. He specifically had been paying attention to him, Anakin knew, like she was maybe considering taking him as a Padawan at some point, and he looked pretty excited to see him.

“Morning, Octus,” Anakin said to him. “We have some new Initiates from the Creche.” Octus looked startled to notice them, which Anakin doubted pleased Knight Kolg that much. But he was nice enough as they were introduced to him, and very happy when Master Kolg then said to him, “Once everyone is introduced I will be escorting you all this morning, and after that the two of us will talk alone.”

The others all woke up over the next half hour, and as the room started to get crowded Anakin found himself separated away from Knight Kolg and the new arrivals, and instead next to Tru. He managed to keep an eye on Ellé, though, who stayed with the new Initiates even after the eight that had joined them earlier one by one gathered. “How long will it be before there are no Initiates left who remember the old Dormitory and fleeing it and flying to Ilum and Polsing?” he wondered to him.

“That’ll be sad,” Tru agreed. “I think the Masters would tell us to let the thought go, though. And maybe they’re right. We’ll all still be us, except if any of us get killed…” He drifted off, for a moment they were both too aware of the high probability some of them would get killed, and not very many years from that moment.

“I’ll remember, though,” said Anakin. “I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Someday, when I’m a Master with a Padawan of my own, I’ll tell them the story at least once. If I shouldn’t fuss over it too much I won’t, but I’ll do that.”

“Me too,” said Tru. “Maybe if we live to be really old we can ask each other if we remember the time?”

“That would mean we win against the Sith,” commented Anakin, and once again the two of them were besieged by scary thoughts, the idea that they might not, that they might all instead be killed. There was the Prophecy that Anakin himself would stop that, of course, but as Master Yoda had said, they could be wrong about that, and Tru didn't even bring it up. Fear was of the Dark Side, they had been told, but sometimes it seemed really hard to avoid. It was only in the most recent months that Anakin was started to pay attention to how afraid he was. He hoped Master Jinn had good advice for being less afraid.

By the time they all went out to breakfast, Master Kolg leading the way with Octus nearly clinging to his robes, he had thought about it enough to say to Tru, “We aren’t supposed to think that way either, are we? I think I remember Master Nu even saying to me once, ‘your focus determines your reality.’ She said that to my mother too; she told me that. We have to just keep on struggling against these Sith and hope eventually we win. I think?”

“I don’t know,” said Tru. “But maybe we’ll know when we’re older.”


	11. Initiate No Longer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin's new Master comes for him.

About a week later, after the new Initiates had had time to settled down and get used to their new surroundings, they finally took the first of their trips within the Temple. Anakin’s hope came true; they went to the Water Garden.

“Not to be confused with the Room of a Thousand Fountains,” said Master Nu as she led them to its entrance. Anakin had managed, with some effort, to stay at the front of the group the whole time, even as he’d held onto Ellé’s hand for most of it. “We will certainly take you there at some time, but it is a much bigger place and to properly see it, you would have to be there longer than we planned for today. That is a place that has a lot of water in it, but its purpose of being is not the water, or what naturally surrounds water. The Water Garden was designed to contain its pools, and the various plants and small animals that thrive in water. There are three pools, each with a different level of depth, as you will see in a moment.”

There were several murmurs of awe as the door slid open, and they saw the garden for the first time. Strangely enough, Anakin’s first impression wasn’t of blue, but rather green. He had never seen so many plants in one small space in his life. They covered everything, and grew so thick and luscious he thought there must be dirt rather than floor for at least a few meters down, maybe more. Light shone from the ceiling; it seemed kind of greenish too. Even when he saw one of the three pools right in front of them, close enough that five steps, ten at most, could cause them to fall in, the water appeared to be green. It took him another moment to realize that was because of all the plants in it, as well as the quick moving objects that he thought might be fish, but they were going so fast he couldn’t tell.

“The Shallow Pool,” said Jocasta. “Although the exact distance between the surface and the bottom varies in different parts of it, nowhere does it exceed a standard meter. Despite it being, due to this, the smallest of the three pools, it is the one that contains the most life, as you will eventually be able to tell immediately. Take from that the knowledge that most life thrives only in a small amount of the space in which the universe exists, and clusters together, and living things must accept each other, and work with each other, for us all to thrive.”

As they all filed in, Anakin found himself at the edge of the pool. It felt…different, to stand there, so close to that pool. It made him feel the way he had sometimes felt when he and the rest of the Initiates were squeezed into a one of their rooms together. “Do you feel different, standing here?” he asked Ellé.

“No,” she said, sounding very confused.

“Not at all?” Maybe it was just because she was younger?

She didn’t get the chance to answer, though, because Master Nu had turned them to the right, towards another one of the pool. This one appeared smaller on the surface, but the water in it was blue, and a very deep blue. “This is the Deep Pool.” She gestured with her hands for them to spread out around it, and together they surrounded its rim, though there were more than enough of them to ring it more than twice. “It stretches down nine standard meters, plus another meter of silt, far deeper than anything else in this garden, or, in fact, anything in any of the Temple’s gardens, and conditions are artificially altered at the bottom to make it like water at the bottom of oceans far, far deeper. There are life forms in here that could not survive anywhere else on Coruscant. In any given habitable planet’s naturally evolved ecosystem, only a tiny fraction of the different lifeforms could survive at the bottom of this pool, and yet there are often many different creatures, all living together, and rare are the bodies of water in which there is no life at all; even here at Coruscant, it takes great effort to regulate it in the water tanks. From this take the lesson of the persistence of life, of its variety, and its strength.”

That was all well, but Anakin wasn’t as impressed with the Deep Pool as he thought he should be. It didn’t give him any new feelings, to look into that water, and he couldn’t see anything; he didn’t think there were any lifeforms at all in the visible part of the pool. Although the idea of the water conditions being altered at the bottom sounded interesting.

The ground was raised behind the Shallow and Deep Pools, and Master Nu led them up and over it. All the plants here were thick ones, with widespread leaves and wild vines, and they were squishy and slippery underneath their feet. Everything was wet; the water of the garden wasn’t just in the pools. They heard the sound of more water rushing even before Master Nu said, “The final pool of the garden is the Rushing Pool, and I believe we are not alone. It is quite common for Jedi coming to this garden to sit by the Rushing Pool, especially if they are accompanied.” She gave Anakin the briefest of looks at this. So that was where she and his mother had met to talk.

They had to get to the high point of the garden before they could see it. When they reached the precipice, which had a set of stone steps leading below, Master Nu’s head was not that far from the ceiling. But at last they were there, and spread below them both the Shallow and Rushing Pools were visible. The Rushing Pool was bigger than the others, an expanse of churning white that sprayed rocks and greens far around it. There was some distance between it and the Shallow Pool, and there was a large section of rocks, the biggest section of the garden outside the pools that had nothing growing on top of it. The rocks formed obvious seats and even a couple of tables, and at one of those sat a pair, one of them taller enough than the other that Anakin wondered if they two were Master and recent Padawan, because the shorter still had the ponytail, but no braid.

“The Rushing Pool…” Master Nu was saying, but suddenly Anakin couldn’t hear a single word, because as the Master turned his head, he realized it was Qui-Gon Jinn. And yes, the young man with him was Obi-Wan Kenobi; Anakin recognized him too now, and he definitely was not wearing his Padawan braid.

He knew the instant Ellé realized all these things too, because she interrupted Master Nu’s speech with her cry, and flung her arms around Anakin. At the Master’s cross, “What is this, Initiate Okrest?” she wailed, “Anakin’s going away! Kenobi’s been knighted now and Master Jinn’s going to come for him!”

“But…” Anakin stammered. “Why hasn’t he come for me already?!”

“Well, you didn’t think he was going to race to the dormitories directly from the knighting ceremony, did you?” said Tru. He managed to maneuver himself and Anakin, despite Ellé’s refusal to even loosen her grip on him, so that they were face to face, and he had the exact mixture of happiness and sadness that Anakin would’ve hoped to see. “Might even be a few days, I suppose. We’ll all miss you, Ani.”

Master Nu finished her speech on the Rushing Pool as they descended the stairs, but Anakin still didn’t hear any of it. He couldn’t keep his focus off Master Jinn, who along with Kenobi just continued to sit there and talk, even though there was no way they didn’t know they had company coming. Several more minutes they stood at the edge of the pool. This was the one with the least amount of life in it, Anakin could tell, and yet there were still living creatures in it, under the surface, maybe even in the foam.

Finally, as they started to make their way across the stones, the two men rose, and the three of them greeted each other, and Master Nu turned to Kenobi and said, “I see you are a Padawan Learner no longer, but a Jedi Knight of the Republic. Allow me to congratulate you.” She spared a glance at Anakin as she said it. He tried to keep a straight face, especially with Master Jinn there.

Kenobi bowed and thanked her, and Master Jinn said, “And you are doing good work with the Initiates, I also see. May we come with you for the rest of the tour? Perhaps we will learn something new about the garden.”

“I’m afraid I’m about done with it,” said Master Nu. “I was planning to give the Initiates a little more time to explore and meditate on their own before they go back to their usual quarters.”

“Then do that,” said Master Jinn. “I am sure Obi-Wan as well as myself will be glad to share company with all of you even so. However, I would like if, when you leave, Initiate Skywalker would stay behind.”

That could not but send a rush of reactions throughout the entire group. The exact same thing that had happened plenty of times over the past months, of course, but Anakin had never realized what it was like to be the subject of all the stares. He might have liked it, if at that moment he wasn’t feeling so completely overwhelmed by the reality of it all. He was about to become a Padawan Learner. Just what he’d always wanted, and yet it was so frightening, and when Ellé was still clutching his hand, he realized how much he didn’t want to leave her, or Tru, or Darra, or so many of the others. Who knew how many of them he’d ever see again.

“Those who feel able to meditate,” Master Nu was raises her voice to quiet to hubbub, and Anakin forced himself to pay attention to her, “may stay close to us, and I will try to guide your thoughts. The rest of you feel free to take a closer look at any of the pools you like.”

“Are you going to meditate?” Ellé asked him, looking over at his Master-to-be.

Anakin knew he should say yes, that he should prove himself worthy of being that man’s Padawan. It still wasn’t even impossible he’d reject him, he supposed. After all, there had been that whole thing with the man he had just trained to knighthood. But all he could think was there’d be plenty of time for doing everything Master Jinn said and being a good apprentice, while this might be his last chance to spend time with this girl who’d really appreciate it.

“Not yet,” he said. “Let’s go take another look at the Shallow Pool first.”

Tru went with them, and together they stood on the edge trying to gaze into its depths to see as much as they could with just their eyes, though there were so many things visible it was hard to keep track. Anakin watched a long, slender, red-gold fish slither for an eternity near the surface until it vanished into the dark watercress, then tried to count the number of tiny black things that floated past, but kept losing count, while next to him Ellé said, “I think I can see the bottom, but I can’t tell what’s on it.”

“I don’t think you can,” said Tru. “I think you’re just convincing yourself of that.”

“Don’t be mean, Tru,” said Anakin. This was going to be a hard enough day for Ellé as it was.

“I am not being mean, I’m being factual,” he said. “You can’t see the bottom; there’s got to be too much stuff on it.”

“You don’t know that,” said Ellé. “Master Nu didn’t say that, exactly. It’s wrong to just assume things.”

“She’s right, Tru,” said Anakin. “But can we not argue today, please?”

So they fell silent, and concentrated on the water, or maybe just the other two did. All Anakin could think was he’d probably see this pool again, though maybe the things in it would be different by then.

Eventually their legs got tired, and one by one the three of them sank to the ground, though they were careful to keep their feet out of the pool; they didn’t want to hurt anything in there. From his new angle Anakin could see the man who was about to become his Master, all the way by the stairs, talking with a trio of Initiates. “Better watch out, Ani,” said Ellé. “Maybe he’ll take one of them instead.”

“You are not hoping for that!” Anakin snapped at her. Did she really want to keep him with her that much, that she didn’t want him to get what he wanted?!

“No, no!” she cried, but she was giving away how upset she really was.

“She was joking, Ani,” said Tru, and there was something in his voice Anakin had never heard before, a kind of firmness and insistence, as if he was much older than Anakin. “You just said no arguing, remember?”

“Yeah, but this is important-”

“Initiates?” Knight Kenobi interrupted them.

All three were immediately silent and at attention, though them falling so seemed to surprise Kenobi. “Do not break your concentration,” he told them, and knelt beside them. Awkwardly Anakin scrambled up on his own knees. That was something Master Jinn might have told him to do, after all, and that meant he should do it too. The other two did the same.

But after a few minutes of them all just concentrating on the pool again, with Anakin contemplating how much less life there was in the middle than on the top and on the bottom, he spoke again. “You will hear many words, Initiate Skywalker, that you won’t like, from both people you like and people you don’t.”

“I know,” said Anakin, not happy at being lectured at this moment. “I mean, we’re diplomats, right? I’ll learn to be better.”

“I hope so,” said Kenobi, and his voice wasn’t really kind, but somehow in there it sort of felt like he meant it.

He wanted to ask him how much he was likely to see him. It did seem Master Nu and his mother had seen each other sometimes, but he would have missions of his own now, and so would they. He guessed he would find out, though. _Be patient._

Except that at that point, he didn’t want the hour to end. But eventually, it did, and Master Nu called for everyone to come to her. Anakin continued to stand at the Shallow Pool as everyone hurried past him, calls of _good luck_ and _may the Force be with you_ and _goodbye_ rushing over the place where he stood. He went back to stand among the stones as the Initiates filed out of the door. Ellé was the last to still be looking at him, though by then Darra had found her and was leading her by the hand. Perhaps she would be the one to take care of her for a while.

And then it was just Anakin, and Master Jinn, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Anakin guessed he could stay if he really wanted to. The elderly Master came over to Anakin, and then knelt to be eye level with him. “Do you know what it is,” he said, “you are attempting to do?”

“Trying to become a Jedi,” said Anakin automatically.

“Have you thought about what that means?”

“You spend your life helping people,” said Anakin; that seemed simple enough.

And Master Jinn smiled, and said, “It’s a bit more complicated than that, sometimes, but that will do for an answer right now.” He unflexed his hand, and Anakin saw he had a pair of tiny bands in them. “Anakin Skywalker, do you accept me, Qui-Gon Jinn, as your Master? Will you obey my instructions, and heed my wisdom, as my Padawan Learner? Will you dedicate yourself to the Jedi, to the Force, and to the good of the galaxy? Will you spend each and every day striving to be one who guards peace and justice, in service to the Republic?”

“I will,” said Anakin, and he knew he would.

“Then stay very still,” he said, and with one of the bands he took a lock of Anakin’s hair and pulled it out to hang from the side of his head. He took out and ignited his lightsaber; it was so close to Anakin’s ear the humming sound seemed to come from all around him, even before he moved it around his head. Bits and pieces of Anakin’s hair fell around them, and he trembled as the blade moved closer and closer to his scalp, though of course it never touched.

“Don’t be scared,” Obi-Wan said softly to him. “He will never hurt you.”

Still, Anakin felt much better when the blade was gone, and Master Jinn was taking the lock of hair and turning it into a tiny braid. It would grow longer, Anakin reminded himself, but even under the circumstances he couldn’t help but feel a little silly with it now. “Anakin Skywalker, I, Master Qui-Gon Jinn, take you as my Padawan Learner. Rise, and follow me.”

It was all so overwhelming that the two of them, Knight Kenobi still with them, were well out into the corridor before Anakin remembered. It was harder to get up the courage to ask than he’d thought it would be, but he managed to say, “Master Jinn, sir, you say we serve the Republic, right?”

“Yes,” said Master Jinn. “The Jedi are bound to the will of the Republic.”

“But, well…” he was going to ask this, he reminded himself. “It’s just that Master Nu told me a story, once, about Malastare, and how we, the Republic, I mean, support one of the races there, and the other one suffers because of it, and it really sounded unfair. And me and the rest of the Initiates were wondering, what do you think about that? Do you think it’s right to support the Republic when they do things like that?”

“Oh dear,” said Knight Kenobi, and he was grinning. “I’m afraid you don’t want to get Master Qui-Gon started on subjects like those, Padawan Skywalker. He will tell you lots of things the Council would not approve of.”

“Really?” asked Anakin, shocked. He’d never thought a Master would be telling their apprentice things the Council didn’t approve of.

“Yes, my new apprentice,” said Master Jinn. “And perhaps we should have that conversation later, because if we attempted to have it with Master Windu, that would not give you the best impression of either of us, going into this new part of your life when you will see plenty of him too.”

“Master Windu?” Anakin tried not to yell the question, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded.

“Yes,” smiled Master Jinn. “Obi-Wan and I are scheduled to dine with him tonight in his and his Padawan’s quarters. And yes, she will be there too. In fact, we are heading there right now.”

Anakin couldn’t say or think anything else then. He had hoped to see Padmé again, of course, but he had never imagined it would be so soon. He was glad when Master Jinn took his hand at the first corner they turned; he was not going to be paying much attention to where they were going.

Although Master Jinn did help get his attention back to that a little, when they stepped into a lift, and he said, “This is a part of the Temple you’ve never seen before. A good deal of it was destroyed both times the Sith have attacked us, but our quarters are far enough in they went unscathed. I’m afraid Master Windu was not so lucky the second time. After we eat I will take you to see where the Temple is being rebuilt, to be stronger and sturdier than it was before.”

It didn’t look much different from the parts of the Temple Anakin had seen before. Maybe the doors were a little more regular, but that was all. Yet it felt different, somehow. Anakin wasn’t even sure how, but things felt more serene here, even if apparently there was rubble and construction nearby. The people were arranged differently, he thought. Instead of all being crowded together, there were going to be one or two of them behind each door. Unless a lot of the quarters here were empty. He wished he was good enough to tell whether they were or not.

Finally Master Jinn and Knight Kenobi stopped before one of the doors, and rang the bell. When Master Windu answered, he didn’t smile, which confirmed what Anakin had already thought that he just didn’t, really, but it sort of looked like his eyes might. “Hello, my friend,” said Master Jinn, and that was weird, hearing someone call Master Windu “friend.” “I believe you know both my companions tonight?”

“I might remember them, yes.” He nodded to each of them in turn. Knight Kenobi bowed very slightly, and Anakin did the same, though as he did he tried to look behind the entrance, but he couldn’t see anyone. “Come in and sit down.”

Anakin was happy to do the first, but he wasn’t happy when he was barely inside before Master Jinn had taken him hand and pushed him into a seat, and one that left him facing away from the three doors in the room. It was a circular room, with pale walls and carpet, paler than had been in either of the dormitories he had lived in before then. The chairs they sat in were hardbacked, but not that uncomfortable. They surrounded a table covered with old paper tomes as well as electronics, which also filled two shelves that were the only other pieces of furniture in the room. The rest of it was a wide space where Anakin supposed two people could easily meditate and practice their katas together.

He was pretty sure the end of the night would see him coming to a new home that looked just like it. He pictured it, him and Master Jinn in that space together, living that way. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. But it was part of a being a Padawan, he reminded himself, and he was still happy about that part.

“Keep your voices down,” said Master Windu. “My Padawan is currently meditating, and will remain so for I believe about twenty more minutes.” Had he said that because he’d realized Anakin was wondering where she was? If it was another Master Anakin would’ve thought so.

“That is a good lesson for young Padawans to learn,” commented Knight Kenobi, and yes, he was looking right at Anakin as he said this. Anakin was smart enough not to say anything to him.

Although of course Master Jinn was allowed to say things like, “It was certainly something I had to watch you learn when you were young, my old apprentice. Shall I tell my new Padawan about my old one?”

When Knight Kenobi didn’t respond immediately he said, “Obi-Wan, in all seriousness, if you don’t want me to…”

“That’s very kind of you, Master,” said Knight Kenobi, and he sounded very relieved and grateful, way too much. There was something going on here Anakin didn’t understand, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. Nor did he like the little something he thought he saw in Master Windu’s eyes, though his face didn’t react at all.

“In that case,” said Master Jinn, “I’ll instead tell you what I did at your age.” That made Master Windu *really* frown; probably he thought Padawans shouldn’t know that kind of thing about their Masters. “When I was eight, and still an Initiate, we had a class where we were to learn how to climb up a cliff…”

The story, of him trying to climb it without the cables when he was supposed to wait, really wasn’t one that made Anakin think any less of his new Master, even if he’d shown his own ability to be impatient in it. In fact, the ending made him laugh, even after Master Windu insisted that even if Master Yoda might have come in and caused him and a friend to hide from him, the old Grandmaster certainly had not fallen into that garden’s lake, and refused to believe Master Jinn’s protestations that he and Tahl had thought he would. Nor did he believe Knight Kenobi’s claim that while he had never seen Master Yoda fall into any bodies of water, he had seen Master Yaddle do so once.

“How is she?” Anakin asked then. “Master Yaddle, I mean. And how is Padawan Madierre?”

But in response to this, they bent their heads, and Master Windu said, “Padawan Madierre is dead.”

“It happened three months ago now,” said Master Jinn. “In a mysterious explosion in the Yaga Minor Shipyards. Master Yaddle was missing for weeks, and we help out hope for them both to be alive, while fearing they were both dead, but she was eventually found, comatose at the time, but now she is revived, and able to confirm her unfortunate Padawan’s fate.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Anakin, and he was, because he would have been sad to hear it about anyone he’d known, or any other Jedi.

“There have been a great many deaths lately,” said Master Jinn. “Even aside from all of those lost when the Sith attacked us. It makes us fear they may be working covertly as well as overtly, and that will make them even harder to foil.”

“Do you think, sir…” Anakin started, but just then, he heard the sound of one of the doors opening, and he squirmed around in his chair to see she whom he had waited to see again all this time.

His first reaction was one of dismay. She was limping, on a support cane. “Padmé! What’s wrong?!”

“Oh, nothing, Ani,” she laughed. She’d been crouched over the cane, but now she lifted her head, and her smile was bright enough to light up all of Coruscant. “Just a little trouble on our last mission is all. I shouldn’t need the cane for more than ten more days or so.”

“Let me help you,” he said, getting up, hesitating for a moment as he looked over at Master Jinn, but his new Master just nodded, so he went the rest of the way, until he could take her hand.

They were closer in height than they’d used to be; he wasn’t sure if she’d grown any, but if she had, he must have grown more. Except her shape was changing, her chest and hips taking the shape of an adult female. Her hair had grown back a little, but it still was pretty short, and Anakin still wasn’t sure how long it would take for him to get used to that. Other than that, she didn’t seem that different than she’d always been.

It was kind of disappointing, in a way. He would have liked to have found her having gotten much stronger, and also much happier, and more accomplished, and very obviously fastly growing towards being the wonderful Jedi Knight she ought to become. And while maybe she was all those things anyway, and it was just the injury that was hiding it, it somehow didn’t feel that way to Anakin.

Still, her heart seemed light enough that night, if only because she, too, was getting to see him again after they’d been apart for so long, and also she was probably happy for him finally becoming a Padawan. And when he asked, “So what’s been up this past year?” she downright looked excited, and he thought of all the stories she had to tell him.

But somehow he was not surprised when Master Windu said, “As to that, I am afraid she cannot tell you everything, Padawan Skywalker. But perhaps a general account of our adventures and the places we have been to would suit everyone tonight.”

“It would,” said Master Jinn. “If I have not heard about all of them, old friend, then I would like to.”

While the chair he had been seated in had forced him to face away from the doors, at least there was another empty chair near it, which Anakin thought might make Master Windu unhappy, but he made no protest when Padmé settled down so close to him. She let her Master tell the story, mostly, only making occasional interjections, things like, “Remember we read about that once, Ani, and about all the animals bred there,” and, “that’s not usual, though; more often when it rains their capital shuts down.” She said nothing when his talk about their work on Cirrios provided no explanation whatsoever for how she had gotten injured. As thrilling as it was to hear about her going to all those planets, to imagine her on them, and meeting with all these people, and having all these adventures, and accomplishing all these things, the whole thing left him longing to really talk with her.

And when the question came up of what Anakin had been up to, he knew immediately he was never going to tell her everything Master Nu had said to him about his mother in front of Master Windu. He wasn’t even ready to talk about it in front of Master Jinn, though he was sure they would talk about it all eventually. So he only told her about more general things.

He never liked his new Master more then when, after all that, he stood and said, “Obi-Wan, Master Windu, there is something else we should briefly discuss, just the three of us,” and a minute or so later, they’d gone off into one of the other three rooms, and he and Padmé were alone.

The first thing he did was jump up, then ask, “Can I hug you, Padmé? Is that safe?” In response she pulled herself to her feet, carefully knelt down, and opened her arms. She squeezed him tightly, his head against her chest, and even more than the new growth there, he felt the heaving of it, how much seeing him again was getting to her. “I missed you so much,” he choked out.

“Me too, Ani,” she sighed. “And this past year…all of it so wonderful, for the most part. I know it kind of sounds dry when Master Windu talks about it like that, but I, I just love doing what we do, going out and helping people. Well, except when we have to fight people, but that’s okay, and I can do that if it helps people too. Sometimes I think the only bad part is that you’re not here to share everything with me anymore. Of course I’ve got Master Windu now, but that sure isn’t the same!”

Anakin liked that, there Master Windu couldn’t keep her from missing him. He wasn’t even sure why it felt important to him that this be true, it just did. “And there’s so much more I want to tell you,” he said. “I think our Masters are going to come back before I even get through the first part of it. It’s about Master Nu. She’s been talking to me about my mother.”

“So you’re learning about her. That’s good, Ani, right?”

“It is,” he said. “Though it’s overwhelming, and scary too, sometimes. And that’s leaving out what Master Yoda said to me.” And that he had to tell her, talking fast and skipping over lines, but he managed to get across what he’d said, basically. “Though he said not to worry about it right now, so I’m trying not to.”

“That’s smart,” said Padmé. “I think what he meant, Ani, is about how much the Force demands of Jedi. Master Windu has talked to me about that, of course. The Force wills everyone, and us especially, to fates we are made for, so we ought to be able to face them and be suited to deal with them. But sometimes it’s going to be hard, especially since our lives are never going to be about what we want, unless it’s to be a Jedi and to serve the galaxy-or maybe just the Force; I’ve heard Master Windu and Master Jinn and other Jedi Masters debate that. We’ve all got to hope you’re up for what the Force wants you to do. But I think you can fulfill your destiny. I know you’re strong, and I trust Master Jinn to teach you everything you need to know. As Master Yoda said, don’t worry. Just work. And I believe our Masters are coming back now.”

When the three older Jedi came back into the room, their Padawans were back in their seats, but each saw their Master scrutinize them. But while he couldn’t see how Master Windu was looking at Padmé, who kept her face completely neutral, Master Jinn had a kind smile, and Anakin got the feeling he didn’t mind too much.

 _I can live with this, then,_ thought Anakin. _After living the way we did before the attack, and living without seeing Padmé at all, I can handle it even if I still don’t see her much. And we can both become great Jedi Knights, which is all either of us has ever wanted. And that will make us happy._ He had no doubt of any of that.

 _Hearts are worn in these dark ages_  
_You're not alone in this story's pages_  
 _The light has fallen amongst the living and the dying_  
 _And I'll try to hold it in, yeah I'll try to hold it in_

 _The world's on fire and_  
_It's more than I can handle_  
 _I'll tap into the water_  
 _Try and bring my share_  
 _I try to bring more_  
 _More than I can handle_  
 _Bring it to the table_  
 _Bring what I am able_

 _I watch the heavens but I find no calling_  
_Something I can do to change what's coming_  
 _Stay close to me while the sky is falling_  
 _Don't wanna be left alone, don't wanna be alone_

 _The world's on fire and_  
_It's more than I can handle_  
 _I'll tap into the water_  
 _Try and bring my share_  
 _I try to bring more_  
 _More than I can handle_  
 _Bring it to the table_  
 _Bring what I am able_

 _Hearts break, hearts mend_  
_Love still hurts_  
 _Visions clash, planes crash_  
 _Still there's talk of_  
 _Saving souls, still the cold_  
 _Is closing in on us_

 _We part the veil on our killer sun_  
_Stray from the straight line on this short run_  
 _The more we take, the less we become_  
 _The fortune of one that means less for some_

 _The world's on fire and_  
_It's more than I can handle_  
 _I'll tap into the water_  
 _Try and bring my share_  
 _I try to bring more_  
 _More than I can handle_  
 _Bring it to the table_  
 _Bring what I am able_

 _The world's on fire and_  
_It's more than I can handle_  
 _I'll tap into the water_  
 _Try and bring my share_  
 _I try to bring more_  
 _More than I can handle_  
 _Bring it to the table_  
 _Bring what I am able_

_Sarah McLachlan, “World on Fire”_


End file.
